Bangalore’s Rs. 260,260 crore (USD 60.5 billion) economy (2002–03 Net District Income) makes it a major economic centre in India. Bangalore is India’s fourth largest FMCG and clothing and footwear market. The city is the third-largest hub for high net worth individuals (HNWI / HNIs), after Mumbai and Delhi. Bangalore is home to over 10,000 individual dollar millionaires and around 60,000 super-rich people who have an investable surplus of Rs. 4.5 crore (US$ 1.15 million) and Rs. 50 lakh (US$ 127,360) respectively. As of 2001, Bangalore’s share of Rs. 1660 crore (US$ 3.7 billion) in Foreign Direct Investment was the fourth highest for an Indian city. In the 1940s industrial visionaries such as Sir Mirza Ismail and Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya played an important role in the development of Bangalore’s strong manufacturing and industrial base.

Bangalore is headquarters to several public manufacturing heavy industries such as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Bharat Electronics Limited, Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) and Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT). In June 1972 the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was established under the Department of Space and headquartered in the city.

Bangalore is called the “Silicon Valley of India” because of the large number of Information Technology companies located in the city which contributed 33% of India’s Rs. 144,214 crore (US$ 32 billion) IT exports in 2006-07. Bangalore’s IT industry is divided into three main “clusters” — Software Technology Parks of India, Bangalore (STPI); International Technology Park Bangalore (ITPB), formerly International Technology Park Ltd. (ITPL); and Electronics City. UB City, the headquarters of the United Breweries Group, is a high-end commercial zone.

Infosys and Wipro, India’s second and third largest software companies are headquartered in Bangalore as are many of the global SEI-CMM Level 5 Companies. The growth of Information Technology has presented the city with unique challenges. Ideological clashes sometimes occur between the city’s IT moguls, who demand an improvement in the city’s infrastructure and the state government, whose electoral base is primarily the people in rural Karnataka. Bangalore is a hub for biotechnology related industry in India and in the year 2005, around 47% of the 265 biotechnology companies in India were located here; including Biocon, India’s largest biotechnology company.

Additionally, a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is being developed in the outskirts of the city. The Rs. 750 crore (US$ 191.04 million) SEZ, developed by the Karle Group is projected by some to employ an estimated 20,000 people in Nagawara.