From a state photo gallery Governor's Mission to india 2011 Vinod Juneja presents a traditional Indian turban to Gov. Martin O' Malley during his Mission to Asia from Nov. 29 through 30.

• 
• 
From a state photo gallery Governor's Mission to india 2011 Vinod Juneja presents a traditional Indian turban to Gov. Martin O' Malley during his Mission to Asia from Nov. 29 through 30.

From a state photo gallery Governor's Mission to india 2011 Vinod Juneja presents a traditional Indian turban to Gov. Martin O' Malley during his Mission to Asia from Nov. 29 through 30.

 

<< Prev

Next >>

More News

Thurmont to ask Congress to reimburse money spent during G-8

Takoma Park police aim to catch fleeing thieves

State chamber: Income tax hike will unfairly hurt Montgomery

Push for Shady Grove arena refueled

Frederick County teachers would receive higher pay raises under proposal

Having trucked 100 participants, including 43 businesses, through the rapidly growing international markets of India, the state's largest economic trade mission returned this week with more than $37 million in business deals.

Deals included an $8 million theme park ride contract, a $3.7 million highway upgrades contract and a partnership for a Prince George's County call center that could employ as many as 50 people.

State officials also anticipate potentially more contracts will be announced by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) on Monday at his press conference in Annapolis about the trip.

The six-day trip took participants from Hyderabad to Mumbai to New Delhi.

“We were trying to manage our expectations since we didn't have the long-term relationship in India that we have in China,” said Robert Walker, assistant secretary of the state's division of business and enterprise development, part of the Department of Business and Economic Development.

‘“This has been much more successful than I anticipated it would be,” he said. “We have been pleasantly surprised.”

Unlike the state's 10-day trade mission last spring to China, South Korea and Vietnam, which yielded $85 million in deals, India is relatively untouched by the state's economic efforts. Maryland has significant trade offices in both China and Vietnam and held a sister-state agreement with China's Anhui Province prior to the mission. O'Malley also forged a sister-state agreement with Vietnam's Ninh Thuan Province during that trip.

Most of these assets are not available in India, where Maryland retains one trade representative, Sanjiv Khanna.

For many, the India trip was viewed as a means of opening the India market to Maryland businesses.

Last year, India was Maryland's 12th-largest export market with $233 million in goods and services, and the state's 13th-largest import market, with more than $465 million, according to state data.

Relationships made

“Do you think you're going to get these deal through the mail?” asked Peter Morici, an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. “You have to make those trips to establish the relationships.”

Indeed, relationships were made during the trip, business owners said.

Jim Seay, president of Premier Rides in Baltimore, attributed his personal visit and the clout of O'Malley's entourage in helping him secure his theme park ride contract with Adlabs Entertainment in Mumbai. Premier will design, fabricate and deliver the ride to India.

Seay had begun talks with the company during an international exposition this year but talks had hit significant delays, he said.

“The prospect of an actual visit by Premier to the client generated real interest,” Seay wrote in an email to The Gazette. “As a business person, one would be naive to not think that a governor and staff who is passionate about the success of their state cannot open doors that a businessman traveling alone would have access to.”

Although Premier Rides has worked in places such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Europe, this is its first India contract, Seay said.

The scope of Premier's work on this contract has expanded in the days since the trip and is now valued between $8 million and $10 million, he said. Premier has already begun advertising for new technical staff to help with the project.

The company will also be using an ExportMD grant from the state to assist in exporting the thrill ride to India when it is complete in the next 12 months, Seay said.

Seay also met with more than 20 businesses during the trip, through business-to-business meetings the trip's organizers set up, and is optimistic some of these will also yield future deals, he said.

Upgrading India's highways

O'Malley's visit also brought to prominence conversations for an Indian highway contract that had been going on in the background for some time, said Manish Kothari, president of Sheladia Associates, a Rockville infrastructure company.

Sheladia contracted with M/S Sai Matarani Toll Ways and Gayatri Projects to provide design and project management services for $3.7 million to help upgrade the Panikoili-Rimouli Section of National Highway 215 to a four-land roadway in the state of Orissa on India's east coast. The road will mostly be used to traffic traveling between the iron and magnesium mines and the port, Kothari said.

Negotiations with the contractor, with whom Sheladia has previously worked, might have continued for another three or six months if O'Malley's presence had not provided that “soft leverage,” Kothari said.

Sheladia has worked in India since the 1990s and works with 19 other countries.

“Given the current economic environment, the significance of a project like this is a no-brainer,” Kothari said.

Sheladia has also secured a $5 million contract with the National Highway Authority in India to be signed in January.

Though the deal was unrelated to the trip, Kothari joked that O'Malley has been lucky for Sheladia.

He added that if Sheladia is retained for Phase Two of the first highway project, it could add on another $7 million to $8 million. One of the companies involved is also interested in investing with the U.S. and asked Kothari to help him identify opportunities in Maryland, Kothari said.

“That would not have happened without this trip,” he said.

Influence of Prince George's economic team

For Robert Nathan, president of DataNet Systems Corp. in Washington, D.C., and president of the Maryland-India Business Roundtable in Largo, it was Prince George's County and its economic development group that aided his company's deal. The roundtable operates out of the same building as Prince George's Economic Development Corp.

DataNet and RT-MediBus Technologies and the Health Management and Research Institute in Hyderabad signed an agreement to create MediHelp, a round-the-clock helpline designed to screen minor ailments and illnesses and reduce health care costs.

The call center would be affiliated with Prince George's County hospital systems. Four Indian states are already using the institute's system, Nathan said.

“It's going to target the uninsured and underinsured,” Nathan said, adding that 13 percent of Maryland's population is uninsured. “They mapped out where the need was.”

Having Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker III (D) and his economic team along for the trip made it easier to get immediate commitment on the project, Nathan said. He said Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) lacked that luxury and chose the more conservative “wait and see” approach, he said.

Nathan expects the call center could employ between 20 to 50 people.

“Going in, I was skeptical to what we were going to achieve, but then you have results like this,” he said.

Baker, who brought along five county officials and 14 businesses, also returned with a agreement between Angarai of Greenbelt and CI to pursue opportunities in mobile and Web applications and an agreement between TripleStone Real Estate of Oxon Hill and Shree Naman Group of Mumbai. for potential hospitality and medical office projects in Brandywine. The Angarai deal also has the potential for a CI office in Greenbelt.

Baker's staff deferred to O'Malley's Monday press briefing for comment.

The state also boasted luring in a proposal from Jasco Nutri Foods in New Delhi to open a new Maryland facility that could generate 100 jobs, a $10 million deal between CyberPoint International of Baltimore and Appin Security Group of New Delhi for mobile device security services and a renewed partnership between DSM Nutritional Products of Columbia and British Nutritions, a Bangalore subsidiary of British Biologicals, for the use of DSM's life'sDHA vitamins and nutraceuticals.

Setting the stage for future deals

Even businesses that did not land deals said the trip was worth it for the chance to interact with so many Indian businesses.

Scientific Biomedical Microsystems in Columbia met with businesses focusing on implantable medical devices and the hospitals building networks to monitor those devices, said Brian Jamieson, president of the Scientific Biomedical.

The Indian political environment is especially favorable to these innovations, Jamieson said.

“It's a long play. It's not something you figure out and solidify tomorrow,” he said. “We have a lot of follow-up to do.”

St. John Properties of Baltimore went on the trip to seek out companies to locate in its Melford Plaza property in Bowie.

“Who knows whether anything will come out of it or not, but we believe we have a leg up on others,” said Jerry Wit, senior vice president of marketing for St. John.

“We certainly met with the right people and some that might lead to joint ventures or working together,” said Pradeep Kumar Wahi, CEO of Antenna Research Associates in Beltsville.

He added that O'Malley presented Maryland well in explaining the state's diversity and technological capabilites.

lrobbins@gazette.net