India third on spending list

Annual commercial spending in India clocked $2.3 trillion in 2007, an increase of 23% from
2006, according to data released by Visa, the world's largest retail electronic payments network.
As per Visa's Commercial Consumption Expenditure (CCE) index, India was third largest nation in terms of
the size of total business and government spend and the fourth fastest growing in the Asia Pacific (APAC)
region.
The other top economies given the size of their commercial expenditure in the region included Japan ($5.2
trillion), China ($4.9 trillion), South Korea ($2 trillion) and Australia ($1.2 trillion).
The CCE index captures business to business purchases to acquire goods and services used in production,
wholesale and retail purchases of final goods, business capital expenditures and government spending on
goods and services.
It makes adjustments to exclude expenditures such as construction and durable defense spending.
According to the report, which considered 21 economies in the APAC region as a part of the global study,
commercial spending in the region grew by 13% to $18.9 trillion in 2007, while global annual commercial
spending grew 12.2% to an estimated $77.3 trillion from $68.9 trillion in 2006.
India emerged as the fourth fastest growing economy in APAC in terms of total business and government
spend, with an annual increase of 23%. The top three positions were taken by Myanmar (41%), Hong Kong
(36.5 %) and Singapore (35 %).
"The markets across Asia Pacific are varied in terms of their stages of development and usage of
commercial card products," said Visa Commercial Solutions, Director (Asia Pacific), John Hazlewood