INDIANS TOP GLOBAL CONFIDENCE CHARTS

INDIA ROCKS THE WORLD GLOBAL consumer confidence is rebounding, and in the US has risen for the first time since 2007, amid signs the world economy is picking up although spending is still restrained, a survey showed on Wednesday.      Confidence was highest in India, followed by Indonesia and Norway, and was weakest in Japan, Latvia, Portugal and South Korea, although in Korea it had improved markedly, according to a quarterly survey by The Nielsen Company, conducted between September 28 and October 16. "Consumer confidence is rising faster in BRIC countries than other markets, driven by increasing job prospects," Oliver Rust, managing director of Nielsen Hong Kong, said.      In the United States and Europe, high unemployment continued to discourage spending on big-ticket items although confidence had improved as the worst appeared to be over for those economies, New York-based Nielsen said. US confidence rises post-2007  IN THE United States — the world's biggest consumer market — consumer sentiment rose from three months ago for the first time since early 2007. The data contrasts with a Conference Board index of US consumer confidence, released on Tuesday, which showed a sharp deterioration in confidence this month. The US reading in The Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence survey at 84 was up 4 points from a similar survey in July but just below the global average reading of 86 and well below India's score of 120 and Indonesia on 115.      "While consumer confidence in the United States edged up 4 index points, that hasn't translated into spending confidence for the vast majority of American consumers," said James Russo, vice-president, global consumer insights at The Nielsen Company. "Clearly, this recovery will be manifested in measured and restrained spending as consumers work to repair their balance sheets." A reading above 100 is considered optimistic. The global average was up four points from a similar survey in July.      Japan and Spain were the only markets in the latest survey to register a decline in confidence from July. Japan's score dropped by 2 points while the reading for Spain — which the IMF has predicted will be the only Eurozone economy to contract in 2010 — fell 4 points to 74. Hong Kong, which pulled out of recession in the second quarter, marked the biggest increase in confidence as its score jumped 14 points from the July survey to 93. — Reuters

India will continue to be a magnet for investments

BofA-ML COUNTRY CHIEF SPEAKS ON REGULATIONS, INDIA INC'S RACE FOR GLOBAL ASSETS     KEVAN Watts, who heads the combined operations of Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in the country, says India is a very attractive investment destination from a global perspective. In an interview with ET NOW's senior editor Andy Mukherjee, Mr Watts discusses India's prudent regulatory approach to capital flows and the need for growth with greater income equality. Mr Watts is confident that Indian companies will once again get into the race for buying overseas assets. Excerpts:  You're very bullish on capital flows into India. Why?  There are three reasons. The fundamentals are so positive for India — the demographics, the rate of growth that the economy has been able to sustain over the past decade. Secondly, Indians are sometimes their biggest critics. They are always ready to say what isn't working. But a lot of things are working a lot better.  Such as?  If I look just at my own experience, the Worli sea bridge gets me to airport much faster; it gets me to Bandra-Kurla a lot faster. Sitting at the airport in Mumbai at 4.00 am, waiting for that early morning flight, is a much better experience now than it was five years ago. Thirdly, what's happening in the rest of the world is also very important. And that's probably another reason why I'm in India. The rest of the world, particularly the West, is facing quite a challenging adjustment. We had economies very dependent on consumption, on borrowings. We have to sort out those balance sheets. By comparison, in the global marketplace, India is looking very attractive. India will continue to be a magnet for investments, bearing in mind that you don't want to go overboard in attracting foreign capital. The economy's ability to absorb those funds is a factor.  We don't want too many bubbles.  In fact, you don't want any bubbles; but you can't achieve that. That's too optimistic. But you do need to look at not only attracting foreign capital, but how that capital is put to use. Is it put to use to build the real economy, or is it put to use purely speculatively? You can never entirely separate the two ends of the spectrum.  You talked of a difficult adjustment period for the West. Do you believe the centre of economic activity is gradually shifting eastward to Asia?  No question. There will be inflexion points in that process. The financial crisis that we've lived through — the crisis that my own company Merrill Lynch became a casualty of (I'm not sure being owned by Bank of America is a bad thing, frankly) — is very material to the shift of economic and financial influence. Technology plays an important role in this shift. One of the things that I'm interested in personally is how this wealth that's created by this process gets shared across Asian societies. We really need to work hard to create economic structures that improve people's livelihoods in villages. That's where, I think, technology has an important contribution to make. For example, by bringing local firms like Bharti and ICICI Bank together, you can see the possibility of offering a different kind of service in rural India without building a lot of hard infrastructure.  I can't almost believe my ears. A career investment banker is talking about financial inclusion. That's something new. The world is changing around us, it seems.  I suppose all professions are caricatured. Although financial services and investment banking produce bad outcomes, they produce a lot of good outcomes as well. There has been a lot of focus on the negative aspects of my profession in the past 18 months for understandable reasons,  but I certainly would not believe it justifiable to regard all  investment bankers as participating in the worst excesses.  What are your clients telling you? Have the bruises of the credit crunch healed?  They're healing. Companies are regaining a sense of confidence in the financial system. We're further along than that in India. India has not quite been affected to the same extent as Western economies. Overall, Indian companies are definitely optimistic and looking to the future. Many companies we deal with that are focused on the infrastructure needs in India have very ambitious plans to build very physical things, and a lot of capital has gone into those companies. Their real focus is on execution now — getting it done. We had a period of Indian companies buying companies and assets abroad at the end of the last cycle. That will come back. Whenever you have cataclysmic changes in market levels, M&A activity declines: Buyers and sellers need to get confident again about the price. That takes time.