IT Minister K Taraka Rama Rao inaugurates Knight Frank India’s new office in Dallas Centre in Hyderabad
HYDERABAD: Shri. K Taraka Rama Rao, Minister for IT, E&C MA & UD and Industries and Commerce Department Telangana Government on Wednesday inaugurated Knight Frank India’s new office in Dallas Centre, Knowledge City, strategically located in the premier IT-Hub of Hyderabad.
On the occasion of the inauguration of Knight Frank India’s new office, Shri. K Taraka Rama Rao, along with Shri. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary – Industries & Commence and Information Technology, Telangana Government and Knight Frank India’s leadership, launched the latest flagship research report –WFH, #WorkfromHyderabad, which showcases the changing face of Hyderabad as a leading city in India, with an impeccable investment opportunity. The report presents a comprehensive analysis of Telangana and Hyderabad city, with subject to economy and development, infrastructure, and real estate market.
Shri. K Taraka Rama Rao, Minister for IT, E&C MA & UD and Industries and Commerce Department Telangana Government said, “Telangana, with its immense investment potential, has attracted several global investors in a short period and will continue to do so to make more sustainable and disruptive technologies within the state. Hyderabad has transformed into the new tech hub of India in the last six years. IT sector presence in the city has also transitioned from mere backend operations to primary production and product development services. The city has also seen significant infrastructural development in the recent past, and many are underway for construction. The Mass Rapid Transit System provides robust connectivity in the city. The city’s metro rail project has a distinction of being the world’s largest metro project in the public-private partnership model.”
He further added, “As we continue to move ahead with developments and a new business model, the state’s principle and philosophy remain the same. I congratulate the entire team of Knight Frank India for the new office. I express my gratitude to the team, for putting this insightful report, which will be informative for domestic and international investors.”
According to the report, since the formation of the state, Telangana's real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has significantly grown to Rs 6.63 trillion in 2019-2020 from Rs 4.16 trillion in 2014 with a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.08% which is considerably higher than the national real GDP CAGR of 5.7% for the same period. The driver of the state's economic growth has been the tertiary sector (services sector) dominated by the Information Technology (IT) services. Telangana IT/ITeS exports contributed revenue of Rs 1.25 trillion in the year 2019-2020, with 18% annual growth against Rs 1.9 trillion in 2018-19. The city is the second-largest contributor to the revenues from IT exports in the country and is home to global bigwigs like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook.
Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director, Knight Frank India said, “In the last few years, Hyderabad has emerged as an important business hub for the country and has seen the entry of global giants into the arena. Our new office in Hyderabad will look at providing various façade real estate investments to the investors looking to tab opportunities based on the state’s economic growth. Besides IT/ITeS, the Telangana government has increased impetus on industries such as pharmaceutical and life sciences, food processing, electronics, and textiles in a bid to diversify its economic interests.”
Shishir further added, "Hyderabad is one of the few cities that recorded positive office rental growth of 2% year-on-year (YoY) in Q3 2020, which highlights the strong fundamentals of the office market in the city. Despite the uncertainties in the market due to the pandemic, the city has seen an increase in rental yield. Hyderabad's residential market is fundamentally linked to its IT sector activity; higher the business, stronger is the residential demand.”
On policies and initiative front, the state government has made several investor-friendly and environment policies to bring the state’s growth story to new dimensions, such as TS-iPASS, TSIIC, SEZ, Innovation Hub, etc. Besides IT, Hyderabad is a significant hub for life sciences in Asia and is referred to as the pharma capital of India. In the last four years, Telangana has attracted investments of over Rs 10,000 crores in the life sciences industry. To give a further boost to this industry, the state government has released the Life Sciences Policy of Telangana and launched vital projects such as Genome Valley 2.0, Hyderabad Pharma City, and Medical Devices Park in Sultanpur.
Commenting on the real estate market, Samson Arthur, Branch Director – Hyderabad, Knight Frank India said, “At the heart of this city is a story of resilience. Capital to the youngest state in India, Hyderabad has been ranked high across categories of living and business. It is now emerging with modern business clusters and holds promise for new industrial ecosystems on the lines of the successful IT sector. There is a stronger resolve to achieve distributed growth across the city. Opportunities in the form of land, development and business friendly governance is enabling existing enterprises to grow exponentially and remains attractive for new investments. The message resonating from the industry and the ministry is of one accord, come home, come #WorkfromHyderabad.”
The report also highlighted that, as the conventional real estate asset classes struggle to get back on their feet on account of the ongoing pandemic, two new asset classes are seeing a sudden spurt in demand – data centres and warehouses. The forced shift to e-commerce to enable contactless business and to fulfill social distancing norms has created a need for more warehouses and logistic centres across the country. Hyderabad being the distribution hub in Telangana is also seeing increased traction in the warehousing segment. Telangana is among the very few states in India to have an independent data centres policy, as early as 2016. The state has already garnered an investment of Rs 25,000 crores for data centre mega projects. Recently, Flipkart opened its data centre in Hyderabad, second after Chennai, to support its core operations.
Key Highlights of the report:
·Hyderabad's commercial real estate market has seen a record growth of 172% in its transaction volumes between2014 to 2019
·In terms of the commercial market, Hyderabad is one of the few cities that recorded positive rental growth of 2% year-on-year (YoY) in Q3 2020
·Residential prices have grown by a significant 5.3% CAGR in ten years, and even during the present COVID challenges, rents continue to remain steady. Hyderabad is among the only two metro cities (another being Bengaluru) that have not seen a fall in residential prices despite the ensuing market uncertainties and low sales.
·The city has witnessed a remarkable growth in corporate activity over the last 5 years and jumped from a rank of 6th in 2014 to 2nd in 2019 in terms of annual office space demand across the key cities in the country.
·Hyderabad airport's share of passenger traffic handled in the country has increased from 5.5% in 2014-15 to 6.4% in 2019-20
·Apple Mobility data trends show improved mobility (+6% for driving and +21% for walking) in Hyderabad by October 2020 compared to the beginning of the year. Hyderabad is well ahead of other top cities on both modes of mobility - driving and walking.
