Few weeks ago, I posted an article earlier which discussed why emerging markets (e.g. BRIC) cannot be clubbed together. There are so many significant differences that it makes sense to look at it individually. Most likely it will also provide maximum possible return for our invested dollars. While China continues to receive most attention in the press, I believe its India that provides a much better option for small individual investors. Following are three reasons I believe India has relatively more fundamental strength than other countries.

• Inward Consumption Based Growth: India’s economy is consumption oriented when compared to other emerging markets. India’s export contributes less than 15% to its $1.2T GDP. The IT outsourcing services and back office has garnered most of the business media coverage; however, these industries have less than 8% contribution to the GDP and employ less than 5 million people. This is an indicator of growth by internal production and consumption. It is less reliant on exports. Quite contrarily, these technology services perform better in recession, because it is all about optimizing operational cost. In addition, its reserve bank (a.ka. central bank) has very conservative monetary policy, which is why we did not see failure of the banks (or banking system) during the current financial melt down. There were no widespread bank bailouts.

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