Tata Housing opens sales office in Dubai

Tata Housing, the residential development arm of the Indian conglomerate Tata Holdings, has opened a sales office in Dubai aimed at non-resident Indian (NRI) investors.

The company, which was set up in 1984, has 70 million square feet of land under development and a further 19 million sq ft in the pipeline. Its properties are in large new neighbourhood projects across major cities including Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Goa, Gurgao, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata.

The Dubai office is the third aimed at NRIs, following earlier openings in the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

“With the opening of our Dubai office, the company will reach out to NRIs, who constitute more than 30 per cent of the population in the UAE,” said Brotin Banerjee, the chief executive of Tata Housing. “The Arabian Gulf market has made rapid strides in the past decade, with GCC contributing to more than 50 per cent of our international sales.”

Mr Banerjee said that this was “the right time for NRIs to buy” homes in India.

Indian expatriates are responsible for 15 to 20 per cent of total sales, and this is likely to increase to 25 to 30 per cent in the next three to four years, he added.

Ashwinder Raj Singh, the chief executive of JLL India’s residential services business, said the Indian property market as a whole was expected to grow by 30 per cent over the next decade and be worth US$180 billion.

“The advantage that UAE-based NRIs – by far the largest contingent – have is that they earn in Gulf currencies that have traded strongly against the rupee. This factor offsets a part of the house cost. However, the rupee is bound to strengthen further, and the advantageous difference between the currencies will be reduced as the Indian economy grows under a stable government at the centre.”

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