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ICSC INDIA HOLDS INAUGURAL CONFERENCE

With mall development in India set to take off, the newly formed ICSC India held its first conference.

About 200 delegates attended the ICSC India meeting in September in New Delhi. They discussed a range of issues, from retail branding to the economic benefits that retail development confers on communities.

There were only about 25 centers in India last year, totaling roughly 5 million square feet. But if some retail projects announced recently come to fruition, there will be more than 50 million square feet of shopping center space there by 2006, according to Images Retail, a New Delhi-based monthly that tracks retail trends in Asia.

Western retail industry figures attending the two-day conference included Robert F. Welanetz, SCSM, the CEO of Shanghai Kinghill, real estate arm of international investment firm Charoen Pokphand Group and a former president of Jones Lang LaSalle; and Stanley Eichelbaum, SCMD, president of Marketing Developments, a Cincinnati-based retail branding firm.