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Mumbai is India's largest city. Mumbai serves as an important
economic hub of the country, contributing 10% of all factory
employment, 40% of all
income tax collections,
60% of all
customs duty collections,
20% of all central
excise tax collections,
40% of India's
foreign trade and 40
billion
Rupees (US$
1 billion) in
corporate taxes.
Mumbai's per-capita income is Rs.48,954 which is almost three
times the national average.
Many of India's numerous conglomerates (including
State Bank Of India,
Tata Group,
Godrej and
Reliance), and four of
the
Fortune Global 500
companies are based in Mumbai. Many foreign banks and financial
institutions also have branches in this area, the
World Trade Centre (Mumbai)
being the most prominent one. Up until the 1980s, Mumbai owed its
prosperity largely to textile mills and the seaport, but the local
economy has since been diversified to include engineering,
diamond-polishing,
healthcare and
information technology.
Mumbai is home to the
Bhabha Atomic Research Center,
and most of India's specialized, technical industries, having a
modern industrial infrastructure and vast, skilled human
resources. Rising venture capital firms, start-ups and established
brands work in
aerospace,
optical engineering,
medical research, computers and electronic equipment of all
varieties, shipbuilding and salvaging, and renewable energy and
power.
State and central government employees make up a large percentage
of the city's workforce. Mumbai also has a large unskilled and
semi-skilled labour population, who primarily earn their
livelihood as hawkers, taxi drivers, mechanics and other such
blue collar professions.
The port and shipping industry, too, employs many residents,
directly or indirectly. In
Dharavi, in central
Mumbai, there is an increasingly large
recycling industry,
processing recyclable waste from other parts of the city; the
district has an estimated 15,000 single-room
factories.
The media industry is another major employer in Mumbai. Most of
India's major television and satellite networks, as well as its
major publishing houses, are headquartered here. The centre of the
Hindi movie industry,
Bollywood produces the
largest number of films per year in the world; and the name
Bollywood is a
portmanteau of Bombay and
Hollywood.
Marathi television and
Marathi film industry are
also based in Mumbai.
Along with the rest of India, Mumbai, its commercial capital, has
witnessed an
economic boom since the
liberalisation of 1991, the finance boom in the mid-nineties and
the IT, export, services and
BPO boom in this decade.
The middle class in Mumbai is the segment most impacted by this
boom and is the driver behind the consequent consumer boom. Upward
mobility among Mumbaikars has led to a direct increase in consumer
spending. Mumbai has been ranked 10th among the world's biggest
centres of commerce in
terms of financial flow in a survey compiled by Mastercard
Worldwide. |
