'Indian firms to buoy ICICI's global growth'

ICICI Bank, the country's biggest lender by market value, expects the share of its profit derived from international business to expand by about 40 per cent within two years as trade increases.

The Mumbai-based bank's international business accounts for 18 per cent of its profit now. That may jump to "more than 25 per cent in less than two years,'' as sales in that sector expand by 60 per cent a year, said Chanda Kochhar, deputy managing director in an interview.

"Indian companies are exporting more,'' Kochhar said. "They are investing in projects in India for which they need foreign currency funds,'' to buy equipment, she said.

India's exports have surged 32 per cent to $99.1 billion in the first 10 months of the current financial year. The $854 billion economy is expected to expand 9.2 per cent this financial year, the fastest pace in almost two decades. That in turn will spur investment of $450 billion over three years, ICICI estimates,increasing demand for foreign loans.

ICICI Bank has operations in 17 countries, including three wholly owned units in the UK, Russia and Canada and an advisory branch in Dubai's free-zone.India's 25 million expatriates, from construction workers to computer engineers and doctors, send back about $28 billion a year in remittances to India, Kochhar said. The lender has a 28 per cent share of the remittance market.

Indian companies spent $8.5 billion on acquisitions in foreign markets last year.

ICICI helped fund about half of those deals by value.