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ABN Amro Bank offers
6 pc rate on home loans Govt announces open skies for the winter Fiat ties up with NIS Sparta Outsourcing: now UK banks face
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Brazilian Foreign Minister arrives
BSNL calls to US,
Canada to cost less
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ABN Amro Bank offers 6 pc rate on home loans
New Delhi, October 20 From the third year, the foreign bank will offer loans at the prevailing floating rate for all loans between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1 crore, ABN Amro Bank’s Executive Vice-President, Romesh Sobti, said after launching the scheme here. The equated monthly instalments (EMI) come to as low as Rs 717 per lakh for a 20-year loan. Coinciding with the festive seasons of Divali and Christmas, ABN Amro Bank’s promotional “Super Saver Loan Package” will be offered till December 31 this year. The foreign bank’s move to enter the housing loan segment with such low rates is expected to trigger another rate war among banks and housing finance companies. Banks like United Bank of India, Vijaya Bank and Corporation Bank offer home loans at 7.25-7.50 per cent while bigger banks like the SBI, ICICI Bank, PNB and Bank of Baroda pegs it at 7.75 per cent onwards. “We are targeting our existing clients and consumers in nine major cities. We will extend it to 25-30 cities in 2-3 years,” Sobti said. Apart from the promotional scheme, Sobti said the bank would offer housing loans at floating rate of 7.75 per cent and a fixed rate of 8.25 per cent. The bank will reprice its floating loans every six months, while fixed rates would be revised every three years. — PTI
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Govt announces open skies for the winter New Delhi, October 20 Joint Director General of Civil Aviation V.K. Chandna today issued orders to this effect. He said the decision is subject to commercial arrangements with national flag carriers — Air-India (A-I) and Indian Airlines (IA). The limited open sky policy will be from the period between December to February next. The decision will allow all foreign carriers from Europe, north America, southeast Asia and the Gulf to operate additional capacity by way of larger aircraft or more flights so as to bring in more tourist traffic. The move comes after the ministry had sought a feedback from all airlines — especially those from north America, west Europe and southeast Asia — to inquire if they would require to deploy additional capacity during the peak winter season in 2003-04 and 2004-05. Reports say international airlines, specially southeast Asian carriers, are making a beeline for the limited open sky window being offered. Leading carriers Thai Airways, Malaysian Airlines and Singapore Airlines, have said they will increase capacity out of India with others like Cathay Pacific expected to follow suit. European airlines such as Lufthansa have said they will increase capacity from Delhi while Air France has decided not to change its winter schedule. On the Gulf sector, carriers such as Emirates are expected to announce increased flights. Capacity into India is limited and there is an unmet demand. This shows up particularly in the peak December to February months.
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Fiat ties up with NIS Sparta New Delhi, October 20 Having lost out on car sales and also on the overall service image the company has now realised that it has to improve service delivery. In that effort it is also wanting to cut down on the prices of the fast moving spare parts. Fiat India has faced a lot of criticism even on its after sales service with the prices of spare parts and the labour charges being charged for various services provided being the highest in the industry. More importantly the limited number authorised service outlets have further brought bad publicity for the company with their attitude towards customers. So as part of the effort to improve the image Fiat India has tied up with NIS Sparta which is one of India’s leading consulting and training organisations in the arena of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The company would be working closely with Fiat over the next six month period (ending March 2004) to identify and implement a host of measures that will further improve Fiat’s service delivery processes.
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Outsourcing: now UK banks face customers’ ire London, October 20 While unions are threatening “industrial action”, customers are threatening to stop banking with banks that have relocated jobs out of Britain. Chris D’Arcy, a businessman from Swansea in Wales, plans to cancel his company’s account with HSBC after the bank relocated switched 130 call centre jobs from Swansea to Asia. In Scotland, call centre employees have drawn up plans to go on strike against the outsourcing p that is likely to see the total number of Scottish call centre jobs fall from 50,000 to 38,500— a drop of 23 per cent — within two years, according to a study by Chester-based Mitial Research. D’Arcy, principal of Swansea Marina-based Bay Estate Agents, said he was appalled at the arbitrary decision of HSBC to put local people out of work. “This is disgusting,” he said. “A hundred and thirty jobs is big bucks in a place like Swansea, and I don’t want to continue banking with HSBC unless it reverses its decision. “I do not see why they should get my money if they decide to damage the economy of the city I live in with the stroke of an accountant’s pen. “I’ve been in business for the past 30 years and things come and go but sometime you just have to make a stand. I will be writing to my local branch manager to say unless HSBC reverses this decision I will be pulling my account. I can take my business elsewhere.” A spokeswoman for the Swansea council confirmed that the authority had renewed its contract with HSBC, but expressed serious concern with the bank’s move to relocate jobs to India and other low-cost labour economies. Council leader Lawrence Bailey described the HSBC decision as a severe blow but said Swansea’s economy was not over-reliant on call centres. Said Elin Jones, the economic development spokeswoman of a Welsh party: “It’s a worrying trend that call centre jobs are being relocated to Asia. “It’s happened with BT and now banking services too. The Welsh Assembly Government has to rethink its obsession with call centres , no sooner are they announced than we are hearing they are off to Asia.” “It’s worrying for the people involved who are losing their jobs, and it’s a blow for the economy of Swansea, which has a high dependence on call centre jobs.” “I think HSBC should show loyalty to its staff and to its customers, many hundreds of whom live in the Swansea area. It’s quite shocking how so many services are being moved.... I think large multinational companies should respect local services for local customers.” Swansea council said the authority had no plans to cancel its account with HSBC and encouraged others to continue working with the bank. A spokeswoman for the authority said: “The council will not add to the unemployment situation in Swansea by putting further bank jobs at risk and, therefore, will continue to do business with HSBC and we expect others to do likewise.” Call centres were once hailed as a valuable source of new jobs for Scotland, replacing those lost in the manufacturing industry and more recent mass redundancies at the computer companies of Silicon Glen. Danny Carrigan, Scottish regional organiser for the union Amicus, said call centre strikes were an option. “Industrial action could well be a possibility in selected areas,” he said. “When our members are ready, willing and able to take industrial action, we’ll give them support.” Carrigan said: “We were told call centre jobs were going to be filling the void. But what we have seen is after two or three years, they are disappearing.” However, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which employs 90,000 staff in Britain, said they had no current plans to transfer jobs to India. RBS said it had carried out a study on a possible move but after “considering all the factors, we have decided not to pursue this option”.
— IANS
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| Brazilian Foreign Minister arrives New Delhi, October 20 During his three-day visit, Mr Amorim would also be briefed by the Indian leadership about the just-concluded New Delhi visit of South African President Mbeki, sources said. The Brazilian Foreign Minister will co-chair, with External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, the first meeting of the India-Brazil Business Commercial Council. The Joint Commission meeting will be preceded by meetings of different Working Groups such as health, energy, science and technology, space, transport and tourism. A round table conference with the CII is also on the agenda of the visiting dignitary. Speaking at the Indo-Brazil joint business meeting organised by FICCI, Mr Amorim said it would be in the interest of developing countries to move forward for timely completion of Doha round of trade negotiations. He described WTO as “absolutely irreplaceable” and remarked: “What happened at Cancun should be left behind and we should move forward, as WTO and rule based multilateral trading system howsoever imperfect is in the interest of countries like India and Brazil.” Mr Amorim said had it not been for WTO, there could not have been a Group of 21 developing countries on agriculture and “we could not have had G-21 on free trade
agreement with United States”. The group which was formed to counter pro-developed US-EU stance on Agriculture has remained together to protect the interest of developing countries.
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Videocon computer soon, says chief Chandigarh, October 20 He was here to attend the India -New Zealand cricket match. He said Videocon has launched 20 products this festive season of Divali. The products cover a whole range of washing machines, colour televisions and refrigerators. In CTV, now the trend is for pure flat and large screen TV . He said the company had registered a growth of 22 per cent in sales during the first six months of current fiscal year as against sales during the corresponding period last year. The company was hopeful to achieve the sales target of Rs 5,000 crore during the current fiscal as against Rs 4,600 crore sales registered during last fiscal year. In the washing machine category, the company’s new automatic washing Neo is all set to be launched. The hi-tech model, with all latest features, will cost about Rs 10,000. The company has launched a host of models, including the DVD TV, India’s first 21” flat TV with a built-in DVD player. Mr Dhoot said the company was already exporting its products in West Asia, Europe, Indonesia, South Africa and South East Asia. During the first six months, the company had registered a 100 per cent growth in exports. It was expecting exports of Rs 400 crore during the current fiscal, he added. As part of its diversification plan, the company had recently launched Videocon-Alcatel mobile.
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BSNL calls to US, Canada to cost less
New Delhi, October 20 All calls to the USA, Canada and European countries (except the UK) will now cost just Rs 9.60 a minute, down from Rs 24, and calls to the UK will cost Rs 7.20 a minute. The pulse rate for the UK will be 10 seconds and for the USA, Canada and other European countries the pulse rate will be 7.5 seconds. The promotional scheme will be applicable to all basic, cellular, WLL mobile and PCOs, BSNL officials said here. BSNL, however, has not revised the ISD rates for other countries. — PTI
Toyota rolls out 1,00,000th vehicle
LUDHIANA: Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) reached an automotive milestone in the Indian market when the company rolled out its 100,000th domestically-produced vehicle from its facility at Bidadi recently, says Mr Satoshi Aoki, Director-Marketing, TKM. “This is a proud moment for the company. We entered the Indian market with the Qualis, which today dominates the MPV segment. Spurred its success the vehicle, we were encouraged to launch the Corolla and the Camry, both of which today are headed towards replicating their global successes in India,” he pointed out. On this momentous occasion, he announced the launch of the special limited edition of Qualis with enhanced features. “The vehicle is a continuation of our efforts to make our products better by listening to our customers,”said Mr Aoki.
— TNS
Singapore, India to sign FTA
BANGKOK: Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said that his country and India have agreed to a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the two countries are expected to sign the deal early next year. “India, in fact, will be signing an FTA with Singapore early next year,” Goh told 550 CEO’s of powerful global corporations from APEC countries at a meeting here. Recalling that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee “has proposed a broader Asian Economic Community, comprising the 10 ASEAN countries, our three Northeast Asian Summit Partners, and India,” he said India wanted to be a part of the growing East Asian Community. Goh said as a first step India has initiated FTA talks with ASEAN members by 2011.
— PTI
Havell’s bags $6.5m export orders
NEW DELHI: Havell’s India Ltd, the power distribution equipment maker, today said it has bagged two orders worth & 6.5 million from a British and a Spanish company. It includes a $ 5 million outsourcing order from a UK-based firm for the supply of miniature circuit breakers. Havell’s has also secured a one million dollar order for supplying energy meters to Iberdola, a leading utility company in Spain.
— PTI
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