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Apollo to set up
clinic in Invest in India,
make money, NRIs told |
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FIIs pump in Rs
1,545 cr LSE turnover
reaches Rs 225 crore in Jan Check pollution
or face action, industry told Honda slashes car
prices by Rs 30,000
Sops cheer up aviation sector
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Apollo to set up clinic in Pakistan by March New Delhi, January 10 “There exists an overwhelming need for a strong primary healthcare backbone in many countries in the Asian and African region”, CEO of Apollo Health and Lifestyle Ratan Jalan said in an interview. In fact, in Pakistan, the company is expecting to award the franchise by March, 2004, and it can be either in Karachi, Lahore or both the cities. “We are talking people there”, he said. “We intend to utilise our expertise, standards and cost competitiveness to tap into this opportunity. Our plan is to leverage opportunities in the international health market, primarily through the franchise route. This is in perfect tandem with our current business as it will ensure widening of our footprint without affecting our focus in the Indian market”, Mr Jalan said. The company has already signed a Master Franchisee agreement with StarCare Health System Pvt Ltd to set up “eight to 10 Apollo clinics” in Bangladesh. The project is expected to be commissioned by the third quarter of 2004. Apollo Clinic is a speciality clinic providing primary healthcare services with specialists’ consultation, diagnostics and pharmacy under one roof. In India, the company already has 15 clinics operational in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Kolkata, Jamshedpur and Siliguri. “We aim to have a total of 25 operational clinics by March, 2004, and in the medium-term plan to have more than 200 clinics by 2006”, Mr Jalan said. With regard to current international plans, an Apollo Clinic in Riyadh is already under development as also in Kuwait. The clinic in Nigeria is likely to get launched by February, 2004. A proposal has been submitted in Yemen and the feasibility study completed for a project in Qatar. “Besides, we plan to tap the African market in the future and other countries in South Asia such as Nepal and Sri Lanka. A few enquiries have also come from some places in South East Asia and the United Kingdom as well”, Mr Jalan said. The estimated value of the Indian healthcare system is Rs 1,00,000 crore. “Of this about 30 per cent represents the cost of hospitals. Effectively, this means that we are looking at a market of around of Rs 70,000 crore which is growing”, he pointed out. “There is a huge market opportunity in the day-to-day healthcare segment. As of the now the primary healthcare market in the country is less organised”, he said. Mr Jalan said with the increased penetration and coverage of health insurance there would be more focus on preventive and primary healthcare. He, however, hastened to add the organised units such as these will not be substitutes for conventional family physician. “Not for a moment am I saying that family physicians will not be relevant in the future. The family physician will continue to play a very important role. Clinics such as ours will not neccessarily be the first point of contact with the patient. Never, ever will these be a possible replacement of the family physician”, he observed. “The Apollo clinic offers comprehensive range of day-to-day health services under one roof. This includes specialist consultation, comprehensive diagnostic services, a range of preventive health check packages and a 24-hour pharmacy. Additionally, telemedicine facility will also be available, connecting patients and enabling them to seek opinions from an expert panel of doctors from Apollo Hospitals, as and when required”, he said. Elaborating on the company’s international operations, Mr Jalan said Apollo will provide its experties and “ensure consistently superior quality service in every sphere, ranging from personnel and infrastructure to equipment and operating procedures. While the services will essentially be the same as those offered in
India, there will be customisation with respect to local needs and social norms as indicated by our demand studies and research”. AHLL’s scope of services would include providing strategic inputs in the are of business development and marketing as well as know-how and technical services in recruitment, training and service quality standards.
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Invest in India, make money, NRIs told New Delhi, January 10 “Returns on foreign investments in India are one of the highest in the world.... Please join the party and make money and I appeal to your greed”, Chief Economic Adviser Ashok Lahiri said, while speaking at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here. The time has never been more opportune to invest in India even though the country has not been able to attract a large amount of foreign investment as compared to other economies, Dr Lahiri said. “This is the right time to discover the incredible India.... If you have an idea which you think can
fructify into a business then India is the place”, the CEA said. The Indian Diaspora should choose India as a destination to implement their creative ideas as India has the distinct advantage of being a knowledge-based economy that has embraced globalisation. The government, on its part, was trying to remove all perceived bottlenecks, and was planning to launch a green channel to facilitate easier and smoother foreign direct investment. In a sign of bouyancy within the government, the key Finance Ministry official said the economy in this fiscal was poised to breach the 7 per cent mark as per the projections of the RBI. “But mind you, the Central bank governors are known to be conservative. The growth in the coming years can be explosive”, Dr Lahiri said. The exports sector was one of the major indicators of the success of the economy, and projected a massive growth in India’s share in world trade from the current level of 0.7 per cent. “India has undergone both internal and external liberalisation. In terms of internal liberalisation we have dismantled the permanent licence raj and unleashed the spirit of entrepreneurship. On the front of external liberalisation, we are aligning our prices to the global levels and leveraging our competitive advantage to make our mark in the world”, Dr Lahiri said. Chairman of Bharti Enterprises Sunil Mittal urged the global Indian investors to invest heavily in the country, especially in projects which light on asset but heavy on the people of India. For making India a business friendly investment destination, Mr Rana Talwar, Chairman of Sabre Capital Worldwide Inc, said pointed to the abundance of management prowess and huge manpower of India.
India to be in top 10 in telecom: Ambani
India will become one of the top 10 telecom powers in the world by 2006, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said here today at the Pravasi Bhartiya conference. Ambani also urged the government to shed its “rigid attitude” and controls in areas like education to enable India to become a global power house in knowledge. “We will be among the top 10 by 2006 as far as telecom sector is concerned, from our present rank of 46th,” said Ambani, whose group company made a big splash in the telecom services industry, introducing 40 paise a call on mobile phone. For India to grow fast in telecom and other industries, Ambani said, the developed world must lift barriers to exports of Indian products and services to those markets. Complimenting the government for its telecom policies, which resulted in
achievement of the targeted teledensity of 7 per cent ahead of schedule, Ambani said such policies were also needed in electricity, civil aviation and other sectors. Reliance Infocomm has invested over Rs 18,000 crore in telecom sector. It claims to have created a subscriber base of over 50 million within nine months of starting services last year.
— PTI
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FIIs pump in
Rs 1,545 cr
Mumbai, January 10 During the week ended January 9 the FIIs purchased equities worth Rs 4,206.80 crore against their sales of Rs 3,084.10 crore, showing a net investment of Rs 1,122.7 crore, data available with SEBI said. The FIIs were net buyers in equities in all the five trading sessions. However, in the debt markets, funds were inactive during the week and turned net sellers worth Rs 2.5 crore with their net sales of Rs 16.90 crore exceeding their total purchases worth Rs 14.40 crore. They purchased on Monday in the debt market and sold on Tuesday and Thursday, while they had not done any transaction on Wednesday and Friday. The FIIs have pumped a whopping Rs 35,153.8 crore in 2003.
— UNI
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LSE turnover reaches Rs 225 crore in Jan Ludhiana, January 10 Market experts feel that the stock markets will continue to grow without risk of any scam. This is because the risk management measures taken by the SEBI and stock exchanges are well in place. SEBI’s
announcements of introducing ‘margin trading’ and the stock lending’ have been welcomed by the stock exchanges as these pushed up the already prevailing bull run in the markets. margin trading will be allowed by SEBI from February. Margin trading means that a client can buy shares of his choice by paying an up front margin and the balance shall be got financed by his broker through qualified banks and financial institutions as per SEBI’s norms in this regard. This will generate lot of buying interest in stocks. Mr R.C. Singal, a director and former president of the Ludhiana Stock Exchange, expressed his happiness over these measures and said these would be beneficial for sustaining the ongoing rally in the capital markets for a longer period. In addition to these measures, the duty cuts and other measures announced by the Finance Minister would have a cascading effect on the markets. Further, the setting up of three funds, totalling Rs 1,10,000 crore for green revolution, infrastructure and small and medium industries would spurt further growth in the agriculture, manufacturing and services sector, thus paying the way for achieving a projected growth of 7 per cent which would ultimately lead to the sustained growth of capital markets.
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Check pollution or face action, industry told Yamunanagar January 10 In the district there are more than 300 plywood industries and many more wood relating industries. Dr S.D. Kadian, Regional Officer, of the board, and said notices had been served to plywood industries as this industry created pollution which resulted in a number of respiratory disease. He suggested that every unit must have wet scrubber as air pollution control device which was easily available. Show cause notices under Section 21/22 of the Air Act had been served. Dr Kadian said a numbers of opportunities had been provided to complete the formalities but only about 100 units had obtained the consent by now. Even the notices had been served to metal industries in Jagadhri. Dr Kadian said Jagadhri industries, which is known as a city of metal wares, has also to obtain the consent from the department to avoid any action. Dr Kadian discloses that the board had ordered the closure of eight rice mills with immediate effect. Those eight units are Mahadev Rice Mill, Sadu Ram Som Nath Rice Mill in Yamuna Nagar district and Shree Anand Rice Mill, Durga Rice Mills Indri, Ambika Rice Mills Taraori, T.G. Agro Foods Industry Nissing, Taraori Gram Udyog Samiti Taraori in Karnal district and Hindustan Rice & General Mill Pipli in Kurushetra district. The closure order had been served because of non-depositing of consent fee and not installation of pollution control devices.
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Honda slashes
car prices by
Rs 30,000
New Delhi, January 10 Honda attributed the price cuts to lowering of the peak customs duty by 5 per cent to 20 per cent and the abolition of 4 per cent special additional customs duty by the government on January 8. The ‘1.5 Exi’ version of the ‘City’ car will now cost Rs 20,000 less at Rs 6.47 lakh. There has been a Rs 10,000 reduction in the ex-showroom Delhi prices of the GXi and CVT variants of the car at Rs 6.97 lakhs and Rs 7.57 lakh. The prices of the manual and automatic transmission variants of the Accord car has been brought down by Rs 30,000 to Rs 14.65 lakh and Rs 15.35 lakh. The cut in prices by Honda was effected close on the heels of price increases made by Maruti Udyog and Tata Motors citing higher input costs. Other carmakers like General Motors and Ford have also announced plans of a price hike. Welcoming the lowering of duties by the government, Honda Siel Cars President and CEO H Yamada said the price cuts was expected to further boost sales of both the cars. Sales during April-December, 2003, jumped 36.4 per cent to 13,040 units on the back of rising demand for the recently-launched all-new City car. Honda Siel Cars India is 99 per cent owned by Japan’s Honda Motor Company. One per cent stake is with Sidharth Sriram-promoted Siel Ltd.
— PTI
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Forex reserves cross $ 102 b RBI in J&K Airtel ISD rates Ajanta Pharma $ 150m for PFC Infosys to hire Alok shares |
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The government today placed the bait for NRIs by appealing to their “greed”
and sought to attract enhanced capital flow from their pockets to put the nation
on the high road of industrialisation.
