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Build a better mousetrap - as the old saying has it - and the world will beat a path to your doorway.

If that’s true, then my experience visiting India in December would suggest that nation is building quite extraordinary mousetraps. The airspace above Delhi was full of leaders from across the globe eager to attach themselves - and their economies - to the Indian miracle.

The political leaders of France, China and Russia followed each other in such quick succession that there was hardly time to vacuum the red carpet at Indira Gandhi Airport - all of them accompanied by commercial leaders and each looking to top their predecessor with the newly signed contracts they took home with them.

Barack Obama pipped this latest group with his own visit in November and David Cameron had, of course, already made India the first major overseas mission of his premiership with a high powered visit in July.

So, what’s the bait in this particular mousetrap?

More than anything else it’s an economy that is still growing at close to 10 per cent per annum and which is projected to climb to second place in the world economic league table within the next two decades. At the same time it’s an economy that aims to generate its continuing growth on high value activity in the service sector with a compelling asset in a young and still expanding population.

This is allied to a new middle class with its own aspiration in terms of lifestyle and appetite for goods and services that match those already established in North America and in Western Europe.

However, side by side with this evident opportunity - and as India knows very well - there are a series of massive challenges that must be overcome and urgently. If this isn’t done then the glittering prizes will never be achieved or delivered. And their willingness to seek the right sort of external support and advice in addressing these issues is an opportunity for the rest of the world and for the UK in particular.

The fundamental challenge arises from the simply raging pace at which change has swept through India - it is no overstatement to describe it as a massive social and economic earthquake. In the face of financial catastrophe which appeared almost unavoidable in the early 1990s, India abandoned the restrictions and controls that had dominated policy making since independence. The outcome has been quite spectacular success in some aspects but there is an acute realisation that some vital issues remain unaddressed and there is a threatening risk of large parts of the population being left as bereft by this earthquake as they might be by a physical one.

And in a country which is rightfully proud of its status as the world’s largest democracy, there is an almost wilfully independent media determined to subject government to a fierce – and sometimes highly partisan - scrutiny. There is a continuous undertow of concern about corruption in public life. The TV and press while I was there was dominated by an emerging scandal over the allocation of telecommunications licences.

Given the impression of turmoil that risks overwhelming the visitor to India, there may just be temptation, while acknowledging the scale of business opportunity, to look to hold back a little and say that just as soon as things settle down a little we’ll in there like a shot. But this is certainly a huge mistake. As the commitment from our international competition highlighted above underlines, the rest of the world in beginning to form a scrum around that opportunity.

So some key immediate action points for 2011 and India? India needs some external assistance to refine and deliver physical - and particularly urban - infrastructure. This essentially relates to framing, project managing and delivering large scale public private partnership projects, The next five year development plan will require at least $1tn of infrastructure spend. The planners are confident that the finance can be readily secured if core managerial competence can be shown.

And the fast growing middle class will be an eager market for an expanding range of goods and services from across the world

Bear in mind that the country’s growth and dynamism isn’t remotely concentrated in the headline centres of Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. By 2030 it is projected that there will be some 68 cities across India with a population greater that than of Birmingham - each of them an eager marketplace. That’s some mousetrap.

Mike Loftus now runs the consultancy firm News from the Future