Kolkata, Oct 4 (IANS) Riding on the demand of theme amusement parks in the country, the industry is expecting to grow at a robust rate of 25 percent every year, a senior official said.

'The cumulative investment in this industry in the last eight to ten years was to the tune of Rs.40 billion approximately and we expect to grow at 25 percent every year,' president of Indian Association of Amusement Parks and Industries (IAAPI) Arijit Sengupta told IANS here.

Sengupta, also the director and chief executive officer of Nicco Parks and Resorts, said the amusement park industry has witnessed a very high growth since 2000 and would grow further in the coming years, taking into account the increasing expertise of the manufacturers.

'Earlier the industry used to import lots of rides from foreign countries. But now the manufacturing companies here are producing majority of the rides and are also exporting it. Though it is still at the nascent stage, it has a huge potential to grow in the coming days,' he said.

He said manufacturing rides within the country provides economies of scale. India can produce these rides at a competitive price than its foreign counterparts due to availability of cheap labour and relatively cheaper raw material.

'Export of these rides started about five years back and is picking up slowly and steadily'.

Stating amusement parks as social infrastructure projects, Sengupta said: 'We have requested the government to extend some tax holidays to this sector. We pay very high entertainment tax, which varies from one park to the other between 10 percent and 25 percent. Tax holiday will help the industry to grow further'.

The IAAPI, established in 1999, is a non-profitable organisation comprising of operators, manufacturers, importers, traders, suppliers, distributors and other related industrialists from the amusement, leisure and entertainment industry. IAAPI's objective is to promote, encourage, protect and safeguard the interests of the sector.