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CECA to deepen ties: Singapore PM
Bank of Punjab, Centurion Bank merge formally
Doubts raised over Power Ministry’s claim
India leader of developing
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Haryana loses as BMW zeroes in on Kerala
Rakesh Mohan named RBI Dy Governor
Package for coop sugar mills soon
Qatar Airways to raise flights
Mittal Steel makes 1 m tonnes cut
Hinduja TMT net at Rs 70 crore
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CECA to deepen ties: Singapore PM
New Delhi, June 29 “We must enlarge our economic interaction and integration with SAARC, BIMSTEC and ASEAN, and find creative solutions to overcome existing hurdles. We must become a partner in the economic progress of our neighbours,” the Prime Minister told the Trade and Economic Relations Committee (TERC). He asked the Trade and Economic Relations Committee (TERC) to come forward with proposals to enable forward movement on negotiations for an India-ASEAN CECA. The Prime Minister also asked the Ministries of Finance, Commerce and External Affairs to strengthen research and policy making capabilities in the area of external trade and economic relations both within government and outside. TERC was also asked to produce an annual review of India’s external economic relations. The Investment Commission and the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Commission have been asked to take into account the concerns of domestic industry and come forward with ideas to facilitate the transition to a more open economy, more closely engaged with all neighbours in South and South-East Asia. Prime Minister of Singapore Mr Lee Hsien Loong said that the relations between the two countries would go “deeper” with the CECA and other bilateral cooperative agreements. "We need support for CECA, which is in the long-term interest of the two countries”, he said at a meeting organised by FICCI here. The CECA is an integrated package comprising trade in goods and services involving a series of pacts on investments, mutual recognition in conformity assessment of standards in goods and services, cooperation in customs, science and technology, education, e-commerce, intellectual property and media. This is India’s first CECA and this is for the first time that India is entering into a bilateral economic integration agreement in services. As a part of the agreement, India has decided to allow three major Singapore banks - DBS Holdings, Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation and United Overseas Bank - to establish wholly owned subsidiaries here. These banks will be accorded “national treatment” equivalent to Indian banks. Effectively, this means that these banks will be given the operational and functional autonomy of setting up new branches subject to adherence of prudential norms as mandated by the RBI. Indian banks, which are already present in Singapore, will qualify for national treatment in Singapore. This would allow them electronic fund transfer and setting up of ATMs and clearances. He said that India Inc would have scope to raise cheaper funds through depository receipts in Singapore. A senior Commerce Ministry official said Indian companies would be able to tap the Singapore capital market by issuing Singapore depository receipts (SDRs) based on the underlying strength of their shares traded on Indian bourses. Likewise, Singapore-based companies will be able to issue Indian depositary issues on Indian bourses and raise funds. Singapore is an important trading partner of India with bilateral trade of about $ 6.4 billion. The balance of trade has traditionally been in favour of Singapore. However, during 2004-05, the balance of trade tilted in favour of India to the tune of $ 1.2 billion. Singapore’s trade with India constitutes about 37.5 per cent of our total trade with ASEAN and approximately 3.4 per cent of India’s global trades.
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Bank of Punjab, Centurion Bank merge formally
Chandigarh, June 29 The proposal is subject to all requisite statutory, regulatory and shareholder approvals. According to the proposal, Mr Rana Talwar will be the Chairman of the merged entity. Mr Shailendra Bhandari will be the Managing Director of the bank. It has also been proposed that Mr Tejbir Singh be appointed as a whole-time Executive Director. These appointments would be subject to regulatory approvals. The share-swap ratio has been fixed at 1:2.25. This means for one share of Bank of Punjab, its shareholders will receive 2.25 shares of Centurion Bank. Or in other words, for every 4 shares of Bank of Punjab, its shareholders will get 9 shares of Centurion Bank. KPMG India Pvt Ltd and NM Raiji and Co will be the independent valuers and Ambit Corporate Finance the sole investment banker to the transaction. Commenting on the merger, Mr Rana Talwar, Chairman, Centurion Bank said: “The combination of Bank of Punjab and Centurion Bank would create one of the strongest full service banks in the country. Centurion Bank of Punjab will have a nationwide network and a strong presence in the retail, SME and agricultural sectors.” The Centurion Bank of Punjab will rank fourth in terms of size among the private sector new generation banks, the other three being ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and UTI Bank. The combined entity will have total branches and extension counter strength of 235 with 382 ATMs spread across the country and a pan-India customer base of 2.2 million. The net worth of the bank will be 697 crore and total assets will go up to Rs 9,398 crore.
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Doubts raised over Power Ministry’s claim
New Delhi, June 29 Power Minister P.M. Sayeed in a press conference held here recently had claimed that the country would be able to achieve the capacity generation target through supply of additional 5,000 MW power from captive power plants, that was not initially included in the plan targets. The Mid-Term Appraisal (MTA) report of the 10th Plan has, however, noted, “ against the originally envisaged 10th plan target of 41,110 MW of capacity addition, the likely capacity addition will at most be 31,290 MW, a shortfall of at least 23.9 per cent.” It adds that the likely capacity addition includes 4,293 MW capacity that was a not part of the original 10th plan targets. If the unplanned capacity were excluded, the shortfall would rise to 34.4 per cent, the report noted. Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia presented the MTA report of the 10th Plan before the National Development Council meeting concluded here yesterday. Commenting on the tendency of the state governments to ignore the tariff orders to state electricity regulatory commissions, the Planning Commission has recommended that all Central assistance to state governments for the sector must be linked exclusively to loss reduction and improved viability. It has also recommended an independent review of APDRP programme — the Central assistance to states for undertaking power reforms — in order to improve its functioning and impact on transmission and distribution losses. Power Ministry officials have however, claimed that the shortfall in power generation was mainly due to shortage of domestic coal production and lack of timely clearances from the Ministry of Environment and Forests and state governments. “Power Ministry is making all out efforts to meet the power generation targets, but we are helpless in case of delay in environment clearance and from the state governments, besides lack of adequate coal supply,” said Mr Sayeed. A senior official of the Power Ministry said the thermal plants were unable to increase their plant load factor due to shortage of coal in the country. It will not be easy to arrange imported coal in the short-term, he added.
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India leader of developing world, says Kamal Nath
New Delhi, June 29 The workshop has concluded that India is in a position to gain market access on all fronts in the WTO and should aim to do so, and recognised the need for achieving a balance in the gains and losses from negotiations in NAMA, agriculture and services. The developed countries at similar stages of development had several times the applied tariffs of India. Hence the ambition of developed countries to reduce Indian applied tariffs appears to reflect double standards. Civil society participants urged the government to make an assessment of the effects of past liberalisation before agreeing to further liberalisation. A view was also expressed that for small and medium enterprises, which are the backbone of India’s export effort, greater market opening in other developing countries was important.
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Haryana loses as BMW zeroes in on Kerala
Chandigarh, June 29 Haryana had joined the race much later citing facts like 60 per cent of the total cars in the country were manufactured in Gurgaon. Other contenders were Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Sources maintain that BMW was keen to set up its first plant in India to achieve the Asian sales target of 150,000 cars within three years. A BMW team of experts had come to India to scout for possible locations for the plant, most of them in the south. Haryana Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, however, denied having any proposal for a BMW plant in Haryana. Mr Hooda’s predecessor, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, was the first one to announce BMW’s plans to consider Haryana. He had even visited the BMW corporate headquarters and its plant in Munich (Germany) in November last year but did not get a favourable response, sources maintain. BMW’s senior vice-president, Klaus Berning had announced that BMW would set up a car assembly unit in India which would later be converted into a full-fledged manufacturing plant. The automobile manufacturer was likely to market its 3, 5 and 7 series cars that were popular with the Indian elite.’
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Rakesh Mohan named RBI Dy Governor
New Delhi, June 29 Mr A.K. Jha, an Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer of the 1969 batch, who at present Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (Ministry of Commerce & Industry), has been appointed as Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (Ministry of Finance). Dr Mohan goes back to the RBI after an eight- month stint in North Block.
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Package for coop sugar mills soon
New Delhi, June 29 The restructured loans, to be spread over 15 years, will benefit 170 cooperative sugar mills in Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Bihar, sources said here. The package, to be fine-tuned and announced within a week, was broadly outlined at a meeting of the captains of the cooperative sugar industry, the National Cooperative Development Corporation and senior officials of Nabard with Food Minister Sharad Pawar here this afternoon. The rate of interest on the restructured loans will be reduced to 10 per cent from the existing rate of 14-15 per cent. The revised rate are likely to be made applicable on the bank loans taken by
the private sugar mills too. — UNI
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Qatar Airways to raise flights
Dubai, June 29 Qatar Airways currently has 19 scheduled flights a week between Doha and four Indian destinations — Cochin, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The airline will increase its capacity to India with 11 additional flights a week, taking the number of services to 30 across five Indian cities. The bilateral agreements allow Qatar Airways to almost double the number of weekly seats it can offer between Qatar and India.
— PTI
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Amsterdam, June 29 Mittal’s plans follow similar moves by other European steel-makers, who last week announced production cuts for the third quarter in the face of sagging demand and high import costs due to the strong euro. Mittal, which made similar reductions in the second quarter, shipped 42.1 million tonnes of steel in 2004 and had revenues of $ 22.2 billion. The production cutbacks will be equally split between Mittal’s North American operations and those in Europe and elsewhere in the world, the company said. Gujarat Ambuja
Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd has allotted over 45 crore bonus shares in addition to 8,80,128 shares issued under the employees stock option scheme. The company said the share allotment & investor grievance committee allotted 45,03,33,665 bonus equity shares of the face value of Rs 2 each. The
committee also allotted 1,500 equity shares of Rs 2 each out of the “rights issue” kept in abeyance. Patel Engg Construction house Patel Engineering Limited (PEL) has won three contracts from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) worth Rs 361 crore involving strengthening and widening of national highways. The company has been awarded a Rs 224 crore project for four laning and strengthening the NH-7 from Madurai to Kanyakumari (km 160 to km 203). It has also been awarded a Rs 238.72 crore project for widening and strengthening of existing section of the NH- 37 from two lanes to four lane from Nagaon to Dharmatul and four-laning of the Nagaon bypass from km 280.57 (NH-37), crossing NH- 36 near km 5 and up to km 262.7 of NH- 37 in Assam.
— Agencies
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Mumbai, June 29 Announcing the results, the company said its total income has decreased from Rs 40.79 crore in Q4-04 to Rs 31.17 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. It has posted profit after tax of Rs 70.05 crore for the year ended March 31, 2005 as compared to Rs 75.53 crore for the year ended March 31, 2004. Total income has increased from Rs 162.49 crore in FY-04 to Rs 167.26 crore for the year ended March 31, 2005. TCI net jumps 40 pc Logistics and supply chain solutions provider, Transport Corporation of India, today said its net profit for the year ended March 31, 2005, jumped 40 per cent to Rs 10.5 crore from Rs 7.53 crore in the previous year. Net sales during 2004-2005 stood at Rs 735.8 crore, registering 16 per cent growth over Rs 633.8 crore in 2003-04. The Earnings Per Share (EPS) spurted by over 40 per cent to Rs 10.05 as against Rs 7.17 in the previous financial year. The company said it has drawn up an aggressive growth plan to increase focus on supply chain solutions, air cargo, domestic and global express cargo and courier services. Sudarshan Chem pay out Sudarshan Chemical Industries Ltd today recommended a final dividend of 30 per cent to its shareholders for 2004-05. The company had already paid 30 per cent interim dividend in February last. The Pune-based company today informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that the Board of Directors took a decision to this effect at a recently-held meeting. It is subject to approval of the shareholders at the ensuing annual general meeting, it said. — Agencies
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