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Rs 2,200-cr foreign investment on way to Haryana
Gates, Maran discuss areas of cooperation
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India’s outlook stable for S&P
Rs 1,35,000-crore credit package for SME sector soon
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad (left) and the Managing Director of Air Deccan, Capt G.R. Gopinath, address a press conference in Srinagar on Tuesday. — Tribune photo by Amin War
Assocham for rural housing loans at 6 pc
Indo-UAE trade fair begins today
Yamaha sets up Indian sales unit
EPF Board meets today
Reliance Info deal with Chinese firm soon
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Rs 2,200-cr foreign investment on way to Haryana
Chandigarh, December 6 Talking to newspersons here after he returned from the eight-day tour of South Korea and Japan, Mr Hooda said that he had succeeded in generating a firm foreign investment of Rs 2,200 crore from both Korean and Japanese companies. He said out of this total investment, Suzuki’s Diesel Engine Project would involve Rs.650 crore, while Suzuki vendors would invest Rs 1,000 crore for automobiles, YKK would expand its unit in Haryana with an investment of Rs.250 crore, Samsung Electronics would invest Rs 65 crore in the first phase while its total investment in Haryana was proposed to be $250 million. The company is expected to formally announce its decision to set up a mobile unit later this week. Mr Hooda said Standard Diagnostics planned to invest Rs 125 crore and NTN would invest Rs 110 crore in the state. In addition, he said, investment worth several hundred crores of rupees would be catalysed as an outcome of the road shows and meetings held by the delegation with a large number of investors in the two countries. The Vice-Minister, Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, Mr Hawan Eik Cho, suggested that Haryana should open a ‘Korean Desk’ for meeting the inquiries and assisting in seeking various clearances required by the investing Korean companies. The suggestion would be considered favourably. He said before leaving for South Korea and Japan, he had inaugurated an industrial promotion centre in Delhi to facilitate foreign investors. Mr. Ashok Lavasa, Resident Commissioner of Haryana in Delhi has also been appointed as Chief Coordinator of the centre.
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Gates, Maran discuss areas of cooperation
New Delhi, December 6 Mr Gates started his four-day visit to India with the 20-minute-meeting with Mr Maran during which both sides discussed the progress made on various areas of cooperation identified during the minister’s visit to Microsoft headquarters in Seattle in September this year. In Seattle, both sides had agreed to cooperate on e-governance and IT literacy among other issues. Mr Maran and Mr Gates will have another meeting tomorrow aimed at creating a more enabling environment for adoption of IT across India. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced the launch of Worldwide Network of Software Innovation Centres, which would help developers,
ISVs, students, entrepreneurs and governments develop and deploy innovative software solutions. Microsoft will operate the centres in alliance with local governments, academic institutions, industry organisations and software vendors, with the ultimate goal of fuelling long-term economic growth in regions where the centres are located. “We are especially pleased to be supporting the national IT goals of many of our host countries, including efforts focused on job creation, fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, and creating more competitive software
ISVs,” said Mr Bill Gates. The MIC network will begin serving local regions immediately from 60 existing Microsoft facilities in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Malaysia and other countries — all of which have aligned their programs and services to help spur local software innovation and economic development. An additional 30 MICs will open in 2006, with facilities planned in Korea, India and South Africa. The centres provide world-class facilities and resources for students, professional developers, architects, IT professionals and researchers. Hands-on labs and other programs focus on technical and business skills development and spurring advances in areas such as 64-bit architecture, Windows vista development and innovative application design. Later, Mr Gates also met Health Minister Anbumani
Ramadoss. Emerging after the meeting, he said the meeting was ‘great.’ On a question whether there were any commitments from his side, he said “many commitments”. Later, briefing reporters about the meeting, Mr Ramadoss said that the discussions were centred around technology of vaccines and prevention concepts. Bill Gates, co-founder of the Gates Foundation, today committed support to the development of vaccines for diseases such as TB and malaria in India.
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India’s outlook stable for S&P
New Delhi, December 6 “India’s average annual economic growth over the past five years of 6.5 per cent is higher than any other major economy except China’s,” S&P credit analyst Ping Chew said in a statement from Singapore today. “Growth has been fuelled by steady economic reforms since 1991. We expect India to maintain or alleviate some of its pressing poverty infrastructure needs.” The agency affirmed a rating of ‘B’ for the short-term. “India’s ratings balance its strong external position and growth prospects with its weak fiscal profile and pressing development needs,” S&P said. Expressing concern over India’s rising fiscal deficit, Mr Chew said: “India has still a pressing fiscal problem and its debt trajectory is on a rising trend.” Despite the implementation of VAT and general tax revenue buoyancy, which has permitted some fiscal consolidation, he projected the general government deficit to reach 8.7 per cent of GDP for the fiscal 2005-06, including government transfers of state-owned oil companies to compensate in part for their public subsidies. “Gross general government debt and guarantees to GDP have risen to 101 per cent in 2005 from 87 per cent in 2000,” Mr Chew said. He, however, said India’s average annual economic growth over the past five years of 6.5 per cent, which was higher than any other major economy except China, was expected to continue. “We expect India to maintain or even exceed this pace of growth over the medium term, which in turn will allow India to alleviate some of its pressing poverty and infrastructure needs,” Mr Chew said.
— PTI
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Rs 1,35,000-crore credit package for SME sector soon
New Delhi, December 6 It is going to announce soon a mega credit package of Rs 135,000 crore for the SME sector while asking the public sector banks to double the banking credit by 2009-10 from the present level of Rs 67,000 crore annually and to offer a one- time settlement scheme for the sick units. The Finance Ministry has decided to “advise” the public sector banks to fix their own targets for funding SMEs in order to “achieve a minimum of 20 per cent year-on-year growth in credit to the SME sector so as to double the flow of credit from Rs 67,600 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 1,35,000 crore by 2009-10, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance S.S. Palanimanickam informed Parliament today. “The commercial banks, including regional rural banks with over 67,000 branches, will make concerted efforts to provide credit cover on an average to at least five new tiny, small and medium enterprises at each of their semi-urban and urban branches,” he said. Official sources said the package had been prepared keeping in view of the vast export and employment potential in the SME sector and to address the repayment issues of the banks. The RBI will shortly issue detailed guidelines to debt-restructuring mechanism to ensure restructuring of debt of all “eligible small and medium enterprises at terms that are not less favourable than the corporate restructuring mechanism in the banking sector,” they said. As part of the credit package, SIDBI in association with the Indian Banks’ Association would collect and pool common data on risks in each identified cluster and develop an IT-enabled application, appraisal and monitoring system for small and tiny enterprises to help banks reduce transaction costs and improve credit flow. The Finance Ministry said the banks would be directed to reduce the annual fee from 0.75 per cent to 0.25 per cent on all loans up to Rs 2 lakh for women enterprises and borrowers in the North-East and J&K, besides reducing the one- time guarantee fee from 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent.
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Air Deccan connects Delhi, Srinagar
Srinagar, December 6 Air Deccan, which has already connected Delhi-Chandigarh-Jammu, extended its area of operation on the Srinagar-Delhi-Jammu sector today. Captain
G. R. Gopinath, Managing Director of Air Deccan, said its priority was to enable middle class people to fly. It was operating 180 flights on 46 destinations, the highest by any airline in the country. More flights would be operated on the two main destinations of Srinagar and Jammu over the next three months. The Chief Minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, stressed the need for marketing Kashmir as a destination for tourist attraction throughout four distinct seasons of a year. The development of infrastructure by way of enhancing accommodation facilities was needed the most at present. Other requirements like the telecommunication facilities were in place. The Kashmir valley would be linked to the rest of the country by rail within three years. With the introduction of Air Deccan flights to Srinagar, it was on a par with other major cities of the country with nearly 50 flights per week. “Now we will like to see that inter-connectivity between Srinagar, Jammu and Leh increases with small aircraft landing at small airstrips like Kargil, Poonch, Kishtwar”, he said. This statement immediately evoked a prompt response from Air Deccan Chairman and Managing Director G.R.
Gopinath, who said that he would like to venture into this area as his airline had 50-seater turbo-prop ATR aircraft, which could land at small airstrips like the one in Kargil. He also assured to consider the Chief Minister’s suggestion for connecting tourist spots like
Pehalgham, Gulmarg, Sonamarg (Kashmir), Chishul and Dras (Ladakh) and Poonch and Kishtwar (Jammu) with helicopters.
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Assocham for rural housing loans at 6 pc
New Delhi, December 6 Assocham pointed out that since international funds were normally available to the government at about a 4 per cent interest rate, there should not be any harm if the housing finance companies (HFCs) are empowered to extend rural home loans at about a 6 per cent interest rate for 30 years. The chamber has made a calculation that if a middle class family is given a loan of Rs 6 lakh for 30 years at an interest rate of about 6 per cent, it would be possible for it to have a dwelling unit at an affordable price. Such a family will be able to repay the loan in monthly instalments of Rs 3,632.45 spread over 30 years. Also, this would not entail any subsidy burden on the government, the chamber said. In lieu of the exchange risk/loss that the government may suffer, it would earn revenue from excise and other levies from economies that would get additionally generated in the
process. — UNI
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Indo-UAE trade fair begins today
Mumbai, December 6 The trade show is being sponsored by Dubai Waterfront, the largest-of-its-kind waterfront development in the world. The exhibitors will include leading free zone promoters - Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority, Sharjah Airport International Free Zone, Ajman Free Zone, Fujairah Free Zone and Hamriyah Free Zone, amongst others. The UAE is the sixth largest exporter of products and services to India and the second largest destination for Indian exports. Indian imports from the UAE surged to $4.67 billion, a 127 per cent rise as compared to 2003-04 while exports rose to $7.24 billion, a 42.5 per cent rise over 2003-04.
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Yamaha sets up Indian sales unit
Tokyo, December 6 Yamaha Motor India Sales Pvt will open nine showrooms in India, Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, the company said today. It expects sales in India to rise to about $260 million in 2007. The motor cycle maker, which competes with market leader Honda Motor Co, is trying to make its Indian operations profitable by the end of 2007. Yamaha, based in Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, plans to sell 3,60,000 units in 2007, up 88 per cent from 1,92,000 motor cycles this year. Yamaha’s new unit, which started with about 120 employees, will take over sales and marketing operations from its Yamaha Motor India Pvt unit that builds motorcycles, the company said. — Bloomberg
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EPF Board meets today
New Delhi, December 6 The Board meeting last month had failed to decide on the interest rate as most trade unions jointly demanded 9.5 per cent. Labour Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had assured the Board and the trade union leaders that he would take up the issue with the Prime Minister to ask the Finance Ministry to raise the interest rate on Special Depository Fund (SDF), where about 65 per cent of the EPF funds are invested. UNI adds: Reliable sources said the government might insist on declaring an interest rate between 8 and 8.25 per cent. But trade unions said they would launch a united struggle if the government did not retain the interest rate at 9.5 per cent. “If the government does not raise the rate of interest on the special deposit scheme to ensure a 9.5 per cent rate of interest, trade unions will unitedly launch a struggle,’’ AITUC Secretary D.L. Sachdev told UNI tonight.
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Reliance Info deal with Chinese firm soon
New Delhi, December 6 When contacted, Reliance Infocomm spokesperson confirmed that a deal was likely to be finalised soon but declined to give details. Sources, however, said that per minute call rates between India and China from Reliance phone could come down by as much as 55 per cent to Rs 8.
— PTI
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Coop projects get Rs 1500 cr
New Delhi, December 6 The allocation is almost 100 per cent more than the sum set aside for the cooperatives last year. Union Minister for Consumer Affairs Sharad Pawar said the NCDC’s efforts would help various agricultural and livelihood activities being undertaken by the cooperatives in the country.
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Panel set up
New Delhi, December 6
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Ericsson’s contract Finacle for CBoP Ion Exchange Chinese loaders RIL complex Versa recalled Matrix stake Mobile Tele Mohan Meakins
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Microsoft founder chairman Bill Gates today met Union Information Technology and Communication Minister Dayanidhi Maran to discuss various areas of cooperation.
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