Stephen Pope, Cantor Fitzgerald Europe feels that within India, obviously the first step one would think about is the IT sector. "Western Europe or North America can be joint venturing with Indian companies - they can send over issues of slightly unfinished business to India, which in the time zone you have, which gets e-mailed back into the West and then the next work that has come in say US or Europe, and they are happy they can pick up the projects at a good note." 

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18’s exclusive interview with Stephen Pope:

Q: What is your view right now after the deep correction that we have seen in India and other Asian markets? The stability that we have been seeing over the last two sessions, is it sustainable?

A: What you are finding is that many people will be pleased that we are through the first half and we are looking for chances to be engaged in the market. But we have to remember that tomorrow kicks off US earnings season with Alcoa. And there is a lot of expectation that you are going to generally see an 11% drop for the S&P 500 from Q2 of last year.

So, is that going to be a trend we will see across the world? Probably in the developed world we will see that. What I think you are finding though is that an increasing number of investors are having a long and good look at those areas of the emerging world where they sense there might be some good opportunities and alternatives.

The one thing that we saved in India is that all the companies adhere to their accounts to international standards. So, a western investor can pick up the accounts from an Indian company and have a very good idea of what they are looking at and getting into, whereas it is not always the case with other Asian companies.

Q: How do you rate the Indian macroeconomic scenario on the inflation front? We have seen a fairly steep level of inflation not seen in the past 13 years. Do you see that peaking off generally for Asia and India in particular?

A: I think what is going to be a problem is that commodity prices are going to start to go with some destruction of the demand there because there is so much infrastructure-build and I don’t see the problem with the hard commodities.

With the price of oil that it is, it is just going to make it difficult and margin compression begins to be felt across all sectors of construction and infrastructure build. So, that might put a slight brake upon how rapid the growth in the Indian economy can be.

However, what I would sense is that, it is recognised that the Golden Quadrilateral project has to be finished. India has got a very good and talented workforce that is manning the high power companies. But there are still a lot of cyclicals in the country that have been left behind, and the way to bring them forward is to start building infrastructure.

So, even if India senses some of its more developed global partners are having some economic difficulty, there is plenty of internal work that India can do and maybe that is a an area that we should all try and exploit.

Q: What sectors do you think the foreign investor will start taking interest in? Will it be substantial or will it just be testing the waters? Would they wait for lower levels?

A: If you look at the charts, let’s look at the main Indian index here, what I think you will see is that we are not too far away from a level where there was good support back in 2007. So, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we see that maybe another 5% could come off. But generally you will start seeing people wanting to put some of their large cash positions they are sitting on, to work.

Within India, obviously the first step you think about is the IT sector. That fits very well with western partnerships i.e. companies in Western Europe or North America can be joint venturing with Indian companies, they can send over issues of slightly unfinished business to India, which in the time zone you have, which gets e-mailed back into the West and then the next work that has come in say US or Europe, and they are happy they can pick up the projects at a good note.