The booming real estate markets in the National Capital Region, Mumbai and Bangalore registered the highest global yields in 2003, according to the latest updates by Chesterton Meghraj, a global real estate consulting group.

The three markets posted the highest yield rates together ahead of London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, Sydney and Copenhagen.

Indian corporates like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Satyam, Dr Reddy's, Ranbaxy, Reliance Infocomm and Bharti are using land as a vehicle to park their surplus funds.

"These companies are now considering real estate as their important component of investment," it said.

Indian corporates bought 1,350 acre land at an estimated cost of Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion) during the last two years.

Investing in real estate portfolio has now emerged as a key tool for corporate treasury management in India.

Interestingly, MNCs like General Electric, Microsoft and Oracle have also been buying land in all the metros and A-class towns in India.

Reliance Infocomm, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Syntel and Veritas acquired 540 acres in Mumbai and Pune during the last one-year by spending about Rs 750 crore (Rs 7.5 billion).

In the northern region comprising NCR and Chandigarh, Hughes Software, Infosys, Perot Systems, ACC, Bharti, Videocon and Ranbaxy bought 140 acres by investing about Rs 350 crores (Rs 3.5 billion) in the past 24 months.

GE, Infosys, Satyam, Intel and Timken purchased 245 acres in Bangalore by spending nearly Rs 330 crore (Rs 3.3 billion).

Xanasa, Infosys, Polaris, TCS and Wipro procured a total of 300 acres in Chennai in the last one year while Microsoft, Oracle, Kanbay, Infosys and GE purchased 135 acres in Hyderabad at an estimated value of Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million).