Passage Back To India

Raj Bagri started his career as a file clerk in a metals company in Calcutta. Thirty-six years after emigrating to Britain, Bagri is chairman of the London Metal Exchange and one of the country's 200 wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of about $100 million. Bagri, also chairman of London-based Metdist Ltd., supplies India with 40% of its copper imports. In his latest venture, he plans to build a $600 million copper-smelting plant in western India in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Materials Corp. "I don't fly the ethnic flag, but I have an attachment to India," he says.

After years of building their fortunes elsewhere, Indian emigres are returning to become major forces in their mother country. Called nonresident Indians, they have been enormously successful in the U.S., Britain, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and the Persian Gulf. Many have amassed spectacular wealth. Although overseas Indians number only about 10 million, their combined annual income is roughly $340 billion. That's equivalent to the GDP of the entire Indian nation of 900 million, says Dubai-based Praveen Suri, Standard Chartered Bank's global head for nonresident Indian business.