Mitsubishi Corp. is making its first investment in Indian housing development, with the country projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country in the coming years.
The trading house, through its local investment subsidiary DRI India Co., will invest 1.8 billion rupees ($25 million) in a project called Shriram Park 63, which is managed by Shriram Properties Pvt., a major Indian real estate developer, in Chennai in southern India.
Mitsubishi will hold a 70 percent stake in the project, in which more than 1,450 homes will be built on a property of 186,000 square meters.
About a quarter of the homes have been already sold. Shriram expects to earn 10 billion rupees in sales from the project in the next three to four years.
"With an annual economic growth rate of around 7 percent, middle-income earners (in India) are expected to expand, boosting housing demand," a Mitsubishi spokesman said.
The United Nations forecasts that India's population, now at about 1.3 billion, will become the world's largest by 2024, topping China's, currently at about 1.4 billion.