LUXURY COMMODITY FETISHISM
India's Modi says new diamond bourse in Gujarat to create 150,000 jobsSun, December 17, 2023
A delegate listens while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks on-screen during the inaugural session of InFinity Forum 2.0, at GIFT City, in Gandhinagar
By Dhwani Pandya
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Surat diamond bourse will create 150,000 new jobs and become a "one-stop shop" for artisans and businessmen, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said as he inaugurated the new bourse in Gujarat.
Surat, in Gujarat state, where Modi originally hails from, cuts and polishes 90% of world's rough diamonds and the bourse will support its ambition to become the world's diamond capital.
Constructed over 6.6 million square feet, the bourse is touted as the world's largest office building, surpassing the Pentagon which has an area of 6.5 million square feet.
Once it starts operating facilities such as international banking, safe vaults and a jewellery mall, further jobs would be created, Modi said during the inauguration event.
The inauguration comes as Surat's diamond industry is battling a slowdown in global demand for polished diamonds. India's April-October polished diamond exports fell 29% to $10 billion.
Modi said that while Surat's diamond's industry had a leading position in diamond jewellery exports, silver cut diamonds and lab-grown diamonds, India's share of global gems-jewellery exports was just 3.5%.
Surat could help increase India's share of gems-jewellery exports to "double-digits", Modi said.
He added that he would continue to support the sector with a range of incentives and by declaring it a focus area for export promotion.
(Reporting by Dhwani Pandya; editing by Christina Fincher)
Sat, December 16, 2023
Workers prepare to pack whisky bottles inside Piccadily Distilleries in Indri
By Arpan Chaturvedi, Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra
INDRI, India (Reuters) - Oak casks, once used to store bourbon and wine, are stacking up in a distillery near New Delhi, filled with ageing whisky as workers churn out almost 10,000 bottles a day of Indian single malt Indri, recently named the world's best whisky.
Sugarcane and mustard fields, not peat bogs, ring the distillery, where the two-year-old Indian brand's owner Piccadily is ramping up production and building a three-hole golf course to lure connoisseurs and tipplers in the whisky-loving nation.
As India comes into its own as a maker, not just consumer, of whisky, its single malts are reshaping the country's $33 billion spirits market.
Established global brands such as Glenlivet, made by France's Pernod Ricard, and Talisker by Britain's Diageo fight for shelf space with local rivals Indri, Amrut and Radico Khaitan's Rampur.
Unlike many Asian countries where beer dominates alcohol sales, India is predominantly a whisky-drinking nation. Global awards, increased affluence and a mass of drinkers trying new brands while cooped up during COVID-19 have rocked India's whisky landscape, industry executives and analysts say.
Aditya Prakash Rao for years drank foreign brands but now increasingly buys Indian malts for himself and for gifts during festive seasons.
Indian whisky gives Rao a sense of national pride - and goes well with Indian food - the lawyer said. "Nothing beats Indian malts in pairing with our kind of food, which is spicy. I love it."
Indri's $421 Diwali Collector's Edition won "Best in Show" at the Whiskies of the World Awards blind tasting in San Francisco in August, beating Scottish and U.S. rivals.
In response to the drink-India trend, global brands that have focussed on single malts aged in Scotland are looking to Indian whiskies to tap the boom in one of the world's biggest whisky markets.
With Bollywood stars and Indian music, Pernod on Wednesday uncorked its first made-in-India single malt, the $48 Longitude 77, with plans to expand sales to Dubai and then the rest of the world.
"We are extremely bullish about this category. It has seen unprecedented growth," said Kartik Mohindra, Pernod India's chief marketing officer.
'CATEGORY OF THE FUTURE'
Diageo, Pernod's larger rival, last year launched its first Indian single malt, Godawan - named after a large, endangered Indian bird - that sells in five foreign markets, including the United States.
"We seem to be moving from whisky in India to Indian whisky - within India and globally," said Vikram Damodaran, Diageo's India chief innovation officer.
Pernod's Glenlivet, long India's top-selling single malt, grew 39% by volume last year but was dethroned by Amrut, which spiked 183%, Euromonitor data shows.
Indian single malts soared 144% in 2021-22, beating the 32% growth in Scotch, data from IWSR Drinks Market Analysis shows. For the period until 2027, it predicts, consumption of Indian malts is set to grow 13% a year compared to Scotch at 8%.
Indri maker Piccadily Distilleries hopes to expand capacity by 66% to 20,000 litres (5,300 gallons) a day by 2025, reaching beyond the 18 foreign markets that make up 30% of its sales, said founder Siddhartha Sharma.
It plans to double the number of casks to 100,000 at the sprawling distillery in a farm belt 160 km (100 miles) north of India's capital.
The local brands are not cheap: Indri starts at $37 a bottle, Amrut $42 and Rampur $66 in shops near New Delhi. In comparison, Pernod's Glenlivet retails from $40 to $118, depending on age.
At the Longitude 77 launch, Pernod served CEOs, diplomats, celebrity chefs and other invited guests the new single malt and cocktails made with it, combined with local ingredients like Kashmiri saffron and Alphonso mangoes.
Radico expects Rampur sales to double each year and will focus more on expanding the domestic market, as foreign sales contribute 75% of its business, said Sanjeev Banga, president of international business.
The biggest endorsement of the category, he said, "is that you have both Diageo and Pernod coming up with an Indian single malt."
"Otherwise, they were only talking about their mainstream foreign brands," Banga said. "They realise this is a category of the future."
(This story has been refiled to change ‘a’ into ‘the’ in paragraph 8, and to remove the extraneous 'last year' in paragraph 14)
(Reporting by Arpan Chatruvedi and Aditi Shah in Indri, Haryana and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by William Mallard)
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