New Delhi, February 27
Apprehensive Pakistani businessmen are beginning to voice concerns about a lopsided bilateral trade scenario as a free trade regime could swamp their domestic industry by the sheer competitive edge of the Indian manufacturers enjoy.

Visiting Pakistani business delegates from Lahore and Karachi did not sound optimistic about the potential gains from trade in a free trade environment.

“Despite the hype created in the media and at business forums about the benefits of mutual trade, I firmly believe that the Indian industry is miles ahead of the Pakistani industry. We can benefit only by becoming their trade partners otherwise it would be difficult for us to compete with them,” said Mr Mohammad Abid, Managing Executive, Faiz Chemical Industries. He said that they were here to study the Indian market, industry and hidden subsidies. The aim was to prepare ourselves for the free trade, he added.

The increasing number of business delegates from Pakistan these days might have created an impression that industry in both the countries was ready for free trade with each other. But most of the visiting industrialists were still skeptical about actual gains from trade with India.

In fact, majority of them were still apprehensive whether in case of free trade the superior and cost-effective products from India, especially the IT, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, engineering and auto would completely destroy the local industry in Pakistan.

After the visit of 60-member delegation of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), a 75-member delegation of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) was currently in India.

Speaking to The Tribune, the delegate members expressed concern whether without adequate safeguards, the Pakistan industry would benefit from trade with India.

At present, official Indian exports are about five times of Pakistani exports to India. During 2002-03, Indian exports to Pakistan touched Rs 996 crore as against Rs 215 crore worth of imports from Pakistan. The industrialists claimed that unofficially, India was exporting goods worth over Rs 1500 crore annually to Pakistan via Dubai, Singapore and other third countries.

Mian Anjum Nissar, President, LCCI admitted that once the SAFTA was in place, India offered a huge market for Pakistan products. But our industry would have to make efforts to compete with the Indian and Chinese products in the domestic and Indian market, he added.

“It may not be easy to compete with the Indian companies, but there can be joint ventures as the short distance between the major markets of both countries, cheap labour, and similarities in culture and languages are the favourable factors to encourage mutual trade,” added another delegate.

The industrialists claimed that unlike in the manufacturing sector, the Pakistan traders and service sector could benefit from free trade. They said there was a vast scope for religious and sports tourism, besides in telecom and power sector.

Some of the industrialists like Mr Shahzad Butt were, however, exploring the business opportunity of selling ‘specific products’ to the vast Muslim customers in India. He said, “We plan to sell a vast range of prayer mats made of cheap cotton to the Muslim customers in India. India is currently importing these mats from Turkey and other countries,” he said.

New Delhi, February 27
Amidst the euphoria of ‘India Shining’ and the so called ‘feel good’ factor, a globally conducted survey today painted a rather grim picture about India’s recent economic performance with the FDI and portfolio investment volumes dwindling and ranking second from last among 62 countries.

As per the latest Globalisation Index brought out by multinational management consultant A.T. Kearney and ‘The Foreign Policy’ journal, India ranks 61, much behind Pakistan (46), Bangladesh (56), Sri Lanka (51) and China (57).

The positions are based on a appropriately weighted combination of political, economic, personal and technological globalisation.

Ireland was ranked as the world’s most global nation for the third year in a row, the country’s strong economic links and high levels of personal contact with the rest of the world helping it hold on to the top spot amid a faltering global economy.

The second position was held by Singapore and the third by Switzerland while the United States occupied the seventh position and United Kingdom the twelfth.

“Despite some positive notes, foreign direct investment and portfolio investment volumes to India dwindled, as continuing tensions with Pakistan and ethnic violence in Gujarat undercut investor confidence,” A T Kearney said.

Travel and tourism were also down, as curiously, was the number of Internet servers to support growing numbers of Internet users, the study noted.

Despite India’s emergence as the world’s premier IT outsourcing destination, India's FDI inflow decreased some 30 per cent from $ 4.3 billion in 2001 to $ 3 billion in 2002.

New York, February 27
Nine Indians led by Wipro Chairman Azim Premji have found place in the list of billionaires worldwide this year which is once again topped by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Premji with a net worth of $6.7 billion occupied 58th position closely followed by Lakshmi Mittal who is worth $6.2 billion and found 62nd slot on overall Forbes’ list of a record number of 587 billionaires, including 64 newcomers.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani are worth $6 billion and placed 65th followed by Kumar Mangalam Birla who found 147th position and is worth $3.2 billion.

Sunil Mittal is placed at 186th position and has a net worth of $2.7 billion followed by Pallonji Mistry who is worth $2.3 billion and found 231st position.

Adi Godrej and family, according to Forbes, is worth $2 billion and got 277th slot. Shiv Nadar is worth $1.8 billion and Anil Agarwarl $1 billion and they respectively are placed at 310 and 552 positions.

Together, Indian billionaires are $31.9 billion.

Mumbai, February 27
The Indian government’s disinvestment process in major public sector undertakings appears to be on track with several companies receiving a healthy response from investors.

The sale of the government’s 8.45 crore equity shares in GAIL through book-built public offer opened today to healthy demand from investors. The very first hour of the bidding process saw bids being received for 44.11 lakh shares at Rs 185 per share according to information put out by the National Stock exchange.

The public offer of the company is slated to close on March 5. The government has offered a 5 per cent discount to retail investors. A maximum of 50 per cent of the net offer would be available for allocation on a discretionary basis to Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs). About 25 per cent of the net offer would be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to non-institutional bidders and 25 per cent of the net offer would be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to retail bidders.

GAIL’s scrip, which along with other PSU stocks received a heavy battering in the past few days, opened at Rs 200.50 this morning as against Thursday’s close of Rs 196.65 per share.

The shares of the PSUs were shored up amidst news reports that Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie had met with officials of the Intelligence Bureau to investigate the bear cartel, suspected to be behind the severe hammering of the public sector stocks this week.

The government has been threatening to crack down on merchant bankers and corporate houses hammering down the price of PSUs ahead of the stock sale.

However, reports of Shourie meeting with IB officials sent out the message that the government business, observers here feel.

Response to the government’s sale of its residual holding in IPCL, CMC and IBP continued to be encouraging. While IPCL and CMC received cumulative bids 2.76 and 4.5 times their offer size respectively, IBP received bids for 83 per cent of the shares on offer. While the investors’ response to IBP was tepid on the first day the sale opened, it picked up Thursday amidst reports that Franklin Templeton had bid for 11 lakh shares in the company.