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Friday,
May 18, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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India to
take lead in world trade: Sinha Industrialists,
govt on collision course Globalisation
has helped world’s poor: Amartya Mutual
funds open to probe: JPC |
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RBI
group for law on bankruptcy Mitsubishi
recalls 203, 635 cars in Japan Wipro
Net merger approved UTI net
inflow of funds dips by 93 pc Reliance
to create telecom network Task
force for creation of jobs Pak
lifts controls on overseas investment Union
Bank to enter market in Sept Tata
Telecom ties up with NICE
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India to take lead in world trade: Sinha Hong Kong, May 17 “India would play a leading role as far as trade and commerce is concerned, considering the huge potential the country has in terms of 200-300 million market, a country with huge resource base and a large educated work force,” Sinha said. India was reinventing itself just as Hong Kong was in the process of reinventing itself in the light of the new dynamics and shifts in the international trade and commerce, he told a meeting organised by CII, Hong Kong Trade Development Council and Indian Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong. “Hong Kong and India relationships have taken a turn for the better with seant and quick exchanges at the top bureaucratic levels,” Sinha said hoping that the bilateral trade between the two countries would certainly expand. Citing a FICCI study, he said 87 per cent of foreign investors in India found growth conditions in the country to be “attractive” as compared to other countries, 54 per cent of investors wanted to expand Indian operations. He asked investors to consider these facts and make India their destination. The CII and Indian Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong signed a memorandum of understanding for facilitating greater investment flows and foreign trade.
PTI |
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Industrialists, govt on collision course Jaipur, May 17 Under the banner of the United Council of Rajasthan Industry (UCORI), the industrialists have stopped all payments to the government. Instead, they are depositing their cheques with UCORI. The payments thus withheld by the industrial units include power and water bills, all fees and taxes. On Tuesday alone, when this protest movement began, cheques amounting to nearly Rs 5 crore were deposited by the industrialists with their respective industrial associations and not paid to the department concerned. The industrialists have taken this extreme step against the hike in power tariff, high rates of fees by the Pollution Control Board and alleged irrational sale tax rates. Before stopping the payment of their dues to the state and other agencies, industrialists from various parts of the state had assembled at Jaipur to take out a protest rally on cars. Nearly 2000 cars had assembled for the rally but the administration did not allow them to hold the rally. Although the government withdrew the hike in pollution-clearance fees, but the industrialists were not satisfied and wanted the withdrawal of power tariff hike as well. |
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Globalisation has helped world’s poor: Amartya Sydney, May 17 Sen, who is in Melbourne on a brief Australian tour, also said that economic growth generated by globalisation has helped the world poor. “Economic growth can be extremely helpful in removing poverty. This is both because the poor can directly share in the increased wealth generated by economic growth, and because the overall increase in national prosperity can help in the financing of public services (including health care and education). And yet the removal of poverty and deprivation cannot be seen to be an automatic result of economic growth,” he said. He was delivering an Alfred Deakin Lecture in Melbourne titled “Global doubts as global certainties” as part of a series of lectures to celebrate the centenary of the Australian Federation on Tuesday night. Sen criticised the modus operandi adopted by anti-globalisation protesters in the recent World Economic Forum and World Trade Organisation (WTO) meetings in Melbourne, Seattle and Quebec. But he admitted that the protests also serve a purpose. “Protest movements against global economy are often ungainly, ill-tempered, simplistic, frenzied and frantic, yet they do serve the function of questioning and disputing the complacency about the world in which we live. It is, of course, possible that in responding to the questions that the protesters ask, we may arrive at different answers from the ones they display in their resonant slogans,” Sen said. He termed such protesters as being hardly anti-globalisation as the protests are “among the most globalised events in the contemporary world”. He had earlier suggested to anti-globalisation protesters that the public would understand them in a more positive manner if their tactics were more “eye-catching.” “Some of the most successful protest movements have as a feature not violence, but humour,” Sen said, before delivering the lecture. He termed the extreme opposition to the process of globalisation as “persistent separatism and relentless autarky.” He quoted from a 2,500-year-old Sanskrit language story about a well-frog — the “kupamanduka” — to warn against a confined, restricted world view which could hamper the progress of humanity. “The scientific, cultural and economic history of the world would have been very limited had we lived like well-frogs. This remains an important issue, as there are plenty of well-frogs around today — and also, of course, many advocates of well-frogs,” Sen said. But he also urged world leaders to listen to concerns put forward by anti-globalisation protesters. “The world needs more interaction, not less. The first step is to ask the questions that have to be asked. To dismiss, as is often proposed, the doubts that the protesters raise would be the wrong response. Doubts and protests do not have to be exactly right to be productive and fruitful,” said Sen, who is the brain behind UN’s Human Development Index. He refused to call the process of globalisation new or a folly. He said over thousands of years globalisation, “as many describe it,” has facilitated world development by breaking down the barriers in travel, trade and migration. He credited globalisation for the “spread of cultural influences and dissemination of knowledge and understanding.” Sen said the progress of humanity was a result of globalisation and any attempt to stop this process would have had negative implications on the progression. The Nobel laureate, who has written numerous books on economic choice, welfare and development, stressed the need to address “critically important issues” which are causing extreme disparity in the contemporary world. He also argued that there is a need to reduce this disparity in the “mixed world of comfort and extreme misery in which we live — often far too peacefully and complacently.”
IANS |
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Mutual funds open to probe: JPC New Delhi, May 17 “Though mutual funds, in general, are not part of the terms of reference of the JPC, however, buying or other functions of any of such companies such as the Unit Trust of India (UTI) or Morgan Stanley that impact the stock exchange can be inquired into”, the JPC Chairman Mr Prakash Mani Tripathi told newspersons after the conclusion of the fourth day of technical briefing. Mr Tripathi, however, said that the JPC would only probe any activities of the MFs that may have had any bearing on the stock market scam and would not go into the general functioning of MFs. Market watchdog SEBI has told the JPC that it did not possess enough regulatory powers, the JPC Chairman said. SEBI Chairman, D.R. Mehta today briefed the JPC about the regulators role and functioning and also gave insight into the existing regulations and provisions as envisaged by the Companies Act. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) Managing Director designate, Mr Ravi Naryanan also briefed the JPC regarding its role and the objectives behind the setting up of a national bourse which seeks to facilitate market transactions from far-flung areas. The BSE also gave details about its functioning to the JPC, Mr Tripathi said. The JPC would continue its technical briefing on May 29 and 30 before moving onto the second stage of discussions from the second week of June to decide on those who need to be called for examination.
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RBI group for law on bankruptcy Mumbai, May 17 The group, apart from recommending a dedicated bench at every high court to deal with bankruptcy issues, also called for repealing the Sick Industrial Company (special provisions) Act and abolition of Board for Industrial and Financial Restructuring (BIFR), RBI said in a release here today adding, this report was submitted to the Standing Committee last week. It has dealt with an effective trigger point for the operation of the bankruptcy code, special provisions for banks and financial institutions, cross border bankruptcy principles and an orderly and effective insolvency procedures. Recommendations
have been made after a review and an analysis of existing status of legislation in relation to international standards on bankruptcy laws and position obtaining in other countries. The group suggested a need for a comprehensive corporate bankruptcy code, which would incorporate provisions relating reorganisation on renegotiation, corporate insolvency leading to winding up and liquidation and settlement of all other related issues including cross-border and counter-claim settlement and cross border corporate insolvency. The group has also prescribed a time bound procedure for bankruptcy proceedings.
PTI |
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Mitsubishi recalls 203, 635 cars in Japan Tokyo, May 17 The ailing automaker, whose reputation has already been tainted by the vast recall of more than one million cars last year, estimated the latest recall costs at four billion yen ($32.45 million). Mitsubishi also exported about 46,000 defective cars mainly to Europe. It said it would recall those vehicles in each country in accordance with local regulations. The recall is estimated to cost 300 million yen, it said. The announcement came at a time when the automaker is already suffering flagging sales at home in the wake of the recall last year of 1.52 million cars worldwide after it admitted to hiding defects and customer complaints for more than two decades. Mitsubishi is set to announce a record loss for the year just ended, hit by the heavy cost of vehicle recalls and drastic restructuring under the guidance of its German-U.S. partner Daimler-Chrysler AG (DCX), which took a 34 per cent stake last year. Mitsubishi has predicted its worst-ever group net loss of 270 billion yen for 2000/01, up 1,057 per cent from its year-ago loss. Some analysts are sceptical as to whether it can break even this year as promised, with no clear signs of a bottoming-out in its sales. Analysts anticipated Mitsubishi’s group operating profit would be around 20 billion yen in 2001/01, after suffering an estimated operating loss of around 50 billion a year ago.
Reuters |
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Wipro Net merger approved Mumbai, May 17 “The merger of Wipro Net with the parent enables us to synergise customer offerings under one
management”, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji said here today. Informing the Bombay Stock Exchange about the merger, he said “this move would allow us to offer specialised telecom skills available within Wipro Net and Wipro to our customers in both the domestic and Asia Pacific markets”. The merger is subject to the approval of Karnataka High Court, shareholders and creditors of both companies. Suresh Vaswani, President of Wipro Infotech, the Indian IT services and products business unit of Wipro, would be responsible for
Wipro net after the reorganisation. The merger of Wipro Net would not result in a material change to Wipro Ltd’s financial statements under Indian generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or US GAAP, the notice to BSE said.
PTI |
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UTI net inflow of funds dips by 93 pc New Delhi, May 17 The UTI mopped up Rs 12,413 crore from the market while redeeming units worth Rs 12,090 crore leading to a net inflow of just Rs 323 crore last fiscal, according to SEBI data. Public sector funds, excluding UTI, saw a net outflow of funds worth Rs 1,044.5 crore, which is up by 40.21 per cent over the net outflow of Rs 744.92 crore in 1999-2000. Surprisingly, private sector mutual funds’ net mobilisation was Rs 9,849.57 crore, which is over 30 times more that what the UTI collected. With their impressive performance, private sector funds have increased their market share to 28.64 per cent of the total net assets of the Rs 90,586.87 crore mutual fund industry as compared to 23.32 per cent in 1999-2000 and a meagre 9.97 per cent in 1998-99. On the other hand, share of the UTI in total net assets has come down to 64.04 per cent from 67 per cent in 1999-2000 and 77.94 per cent in 1998-99. The share of public sector funds also has similarly gone down from 12.09 per cent in 1998-99 to 9.68 per cent in 1999-2000 and 7.32 per cent in 2000-2001. As on March 31, 2001, total mutual funds net assets were to the tune of Rs 90,586.87 crore, which is a drop of 16.08 per cent over Rs 1,07,946.1 crore the year before.
PTI |
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Reliance
to create telecom network New Delhi, May 17 The company, which has already laid optical fibre between Delhi and Mumbai covering nearly 10,000 km, is planning to invest Rs 30,000 crore in the telecom sector over the next five years, company sources said. If the STD licence was granted to Reliance, the company is in a position to start the long distance services without wasting any time between the two stations, sources said, adding that optical fibre was currently being laid between Kolkata and Chennai. The long-term plan is to create a parallel telecom network to the BSNL covering 16,000 km by laying optical fibre connecting the major metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and others. Company sources said around 200 major towns or cities would be connected within the next five to six months . Reliance Telecom has already invested Rs 10,000 crore for putting duct, optical fibre and intelligence software STM-16, sources said, adding that completion of this project would cost about Rs 16,000 crore. As part of expansion programme, Reliance had applied for basic telecom services in 18 states in the second round. The government has already issued a LoI to Reliance Telecom for 18 circles including, Delhi, Mumbai. Kolkata, Chennai, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana. The group, which is currently operating in Gujarat, had not applied for Assam and North East circles.
PTI |
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Task force for creation of jobs New Delhi, May 17 The Task Force will have representatives from the Union Home Ministry, the Planning Commission and chambers of commerce. The decision to create the Task Force was taken at a meeting between industry representatives and the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Mr K.C. Pant. Mr Pant said that the process of employment creation has already been initiated by the J&K Employment Cell in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The meeting was attended by representatives from apex associations including the CII, FICCI, Assocham and
PHDCCI. |
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Pak lifts controls on overseas investment Karachi, May 17 “The State Bank of Pakistan has liberalised investment by Pakistani companies for setting up joint industrial ventures or undertakings in any business or listing on stock exchanges abroad,” the bank said in a statement. The move was made in response to a decision on Wednesday by the country’s military government requesting the central bank “grant permission for equity-based investment abroad by local companies”.
Reuters |
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Union Bank to enter market in Sept Chandigarh, May 17 The net profit of the bank increased from Rs 101 crore to Rs 155
crore. This figure was arrived at after providing Rs 106 crore for VRS amortisation. An increase of 12.6 per cent in the interest income has been recorded. Total income of the bank went up to Rs 4,044 crore from Rs 3,614 last year. While the total advances increased by 17 per cent , the deposits were Rs 3,697 crore, showing a growth of 12 per cent. Seven new branches of the bank were opened during the year, thereby increasing the total number of branches to 2,053. The bank is planning to enter the capital market in September this year with an initial public offer of Rs 200 crore to Rs 250 crore. |
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Tata Telecom ties up with NICE Chandigarh, May 17 Under the partnership arrangement, Tata Telecom will sell, install and fully support the NICE CEM solutions in India. Tata Telecom with NICE’s market solutions will provide a comprehensive range of services to enable contact centres in India to analyse, evaluate, and improve the entire customer experience to build lasting customer loyalty. It’s comprehensive solutions will support a wide variety of communication forms including Voice, Voice over Internet Protocol, e-mail, and Web interactions. This agreement will provide a significant opportunity for growth to satisfy the increasing demand for customer experience management solutions for India’s thriving contact centre market. |
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Nippon A. P. Kurian Milton Thermo NTPC Director BSE |
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