The project list includes tissue culture, aquaculture, milk and dairy processing, poultry hatchery, egg production, fruit and vegetable processing, cut flower auction, co generation, agro-hub, electronic futures trading, supercritical extraction, collection and distribution centre and market information system.

The GIC Group in association of Maharashtra Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation have prepared detailed project reports offered in the four-day Agro Advantage Maharashtra Global Investors' Convention.

The GIC group chief executive officer Richard Gilmore told The FinancialExpress that despite the turmoill in the world's financial markets and the Asian economic crisis such desire has been shown by the investors. "Serious corporate investors and financial institutions recognise India's growth potential in agriculture," he added.

Gilmore, who spoke at the technical session on "finance for agriculture and related activities," at the Agro Advantage Maharashtra Global Investor's Convention, said though there has not been hard and fast commitments, the groundwork has been laid. "Now we have to insure that the brick and mortar come next."

He said that generally the average return on investment for the projects promoted by GIC was 20 per cent without any allowance for government subsidies and added that most of the projects were in the range of $5 to $15 million.

He informed that the most capital intensive projects were designed to introduce new production, logistics management and information systems technologies to India. "GIC reports that these technologies areappropriate for larger scale commercial producers and processors. The company's findings also indicate that these higher value industries offer high multiplier, measured in terms of benefit to Maharashtra's entire agricultural economy," he said.

Gilmore said that agri business companies in Maharashtra should concentrate on strengthening their home base - domestic markets before tackling exports markets. "The more competitive a company is in its internal market, the more efficient it will be as a competitor in international markets," he opined.

Gilmore said that equally important was the fact that as the WTO agreement imposes its strict liberalisation timetable, Indian companies as a whole will be facing more competition on the home front. Thus, he stressed the need for the companies from Maharashtra and India in general to become more efficient in a foreshortened period of time. He added that the government can encourage the establishment of strategic alliances and joint ventures in such areas asprocessing technologies which will serve to shorten the learning curve and strengthen the foundation.

Gilmore said that investment in infrastructure was critical to the success of present, planned and future ventures in agribusiness - cold storage chains, private road system, warehousing and port systems. He added that public sector financing can lead the way due to the scale of investment required the implicit shared ownership which these assets entail. He stressed the need for uniformity in the implementation procedures with respect to range of regulations in all states and added that the government responsibilities should be concentrated on maintaining a competitive agro economic structure and insuring adequate enforcement of environmental controls and phyto-sanitary regulations.