Amid the raging war in West Asia – which witnessed retaliatory bombings on a host of new economy businesses, such as Amazon Web Services across the Gulf region -- India may benefit as an alternative geo-politically neutral destination. Tata Projects MD Vinayak Pai told Fortune India that a major Middle east plus one opportunity awaits India.

Pai said during an interview that there are “downside risks” to the economy, but we may also get some gains by virtue of being a very neutral destination. “Definitely there will be opportunities. We used to talk about China plus one. Maybe the future is Middle-East plus one. India is having that opportunity. It is something which is developing very quickly,” Pai told Fortune India.

“Global organizations and global investors look at multiple things when they invest. They look for political stability, and geographical stability. They look for stable market. India brings a lot of these dynamics to the table,” Pai said.

“The neutral political alignment across the globe is something which will really favour India's future,” he added.  

Pai said that in this backdrop, data centres will be a big driver along with manufacturing capabilities in the metals and aluminium sector. “The core sectors will grow in India,” he said.

“The data centres market is huge. The electronics and semiconductor manufacturing is a very new and bold step by the government,” he said adding that the ministry of electronics and information technology has been really driving global investment and have been very successful in attracting lot of global investors at the same time encouraging a lot of Indian companies to start investing in advanced manufacturing.

On the challenges being faced by the company due to the West Asia crisis in the medium to short term, Pai said geopolitical instability like this brings challenges but as of now there has been no significant dent or shelving of the capex plans by the government and private sector. “The investors get a little bit jittery, about making fresh investment plans. The good thing for India is the government has not signalled any slowdown in their capital expenditure. The projects remain strong,” he said.  

“Even on the private expansion side, lot of investments and a lot of commitments have already been made. So, in the ongoing construction, we are not witnessing slowdown in any of the projects. Customers are not reconsidering the projects as of now,” he said.

“People are a little cautious, but the ongoing investments are on track. In fact, it is for us to deliver those projects, given the various challenges,” he added.