New Delhi, May 20
India deserves a rating upgrade in view of improvement in macro-economic situation, the conservative outlook of Standard & Poor's notwithstanding, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said here today.

"Our case is that we deserve an upgrade both on the outlook and the rating. S&P may not have been convinced about that...," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Annual Day function of the Competition Commission of India.

On Friday, global credit rating agency S&P had warned that it may downgrade India's sovereign rating to junk grade if the government fails to pursue reforms and check deterioration in fiscal and current account deficits.

"There is nothing to worry. Our macro-economic position today is much better than what it was in August 2012," Chidambaram said, adding that the Indian economy was entering a new phase of strong growth.

New Delhi, May 20
India’s mounting trade deficit with China at over $40 billion took centre stage at the meeting of trade ministers of the two countries.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma in his meeting with Gao Hucheng, Commerce Minister of China, expressed concern over the growing trade deficit.

In the discussions, the Chinese minister acknowledged concerns of the trade imbalance.

He suggested several measures, including purchase missions, efficient trade access for competitive products from India, trade fairs and promotion of services and tourism.

Trade between India and China has witnessed exponential growth during the past few years. Bilateral trade had gone up from $2.09 billion in 2001-02 to the high of $75.59 billion in 2011-12 having tapered to $67.83 billion during the year 2012-13. Simultaneously, the trade deficit has increased from $1.08 billion in 2001-02 to $40.77 billion in 2012-13.

The Indian side pointed out that a joint communiqué had been signed earlier detailing the measures to promote greater Indian exports to China with a view to reducing India's trade deficit. This included enhancing exchange and cooperation of pharmaceutical products, stronger relationships between Chinese enterprises and Indian IT industry and speedier completion of phyto-sanitary negotiations on agro products.

However, in the intervening period, there was little progress in the Joint Communiqué and India urged that the Chinese Government should take necessary corrective steps to remove, or at least, reduce this large imbalance in trade. The Indian side said the widening trade imbalance is not conducive for long term sustainability and therefore China has to take active measures to promote greater market access for imports from India with a view to reducing the trade deficit.

It was also pointed out that during bilateral trade discussions last year, the two countries had agreed to constitute three working groups on trade and investments. India expressed concern that no real progress in moving the process forward could be achieved due to lack of response from Chinese side in the past 8 months.

India and China today signed three MoUs on buffalo meat, fisheries and pharmaceuticals and one agreement on feed and feed ingredients. These MoUs will address the growing trade deficit between the two countries.

At the meeting of the India-China CEO Forum, raising the issue of low-cost imports from China, Harsh Pati Singhania, Director, JK Organisation, cautioned against low-cost imports from China which were negatively affecting the Indian economy. He said India had a daunting task of providing jobs to its millions of unskilled labourers and in such a scenario, providing work permits to unskilled workers from China would not be feasible.

New Delhi, May 20
The first India-China CEOs Forum has called for identifying key issues at the policy and sectoral level to step up business cooperation between the two countries.

The meeting held here today decided to engage with companies and banks under the guidance of government agencies of the two countries to help in enhancing bilateral trade volume to $100 billion by 2015 from $67 billion in 2012.

The CEOs of 20 large Indian and Chinese companies resolved to expand the scope for trade, eliminate the existing trade and investment barriers to promote balanced trade and jointly oppose trade protectionism to create a conducive investment environment.

While presiding over the Forum, Anil Ambani, Forum chairman on the Indian side and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, urged the Forum members to identify five issues both at the policy and sectoral levels so that these could be sorted out before the next meeting of the Forum next year.

He made an impassioned plea to expand the Rupee-RMB-Dollar trade to reach the initial limit of $1 billion set by the RBI. He said the Re-RMB-$ trade limit was set in 2012 and "even as we speak, no trade under this mechanism has taken place".

Ambani said Indian companies would like to see more of equity funding by Chinese companies and added in view of the large populations of the two countries and given China's experience in providing life cover to its people, there was a need to get more Chinese companies in India's insurance sector.

Hu Huaibang, the Forum chairman on the Chinese part and president of China Development Bank, said the goal of attaining bilateral trade volume of $100 billion by 2015 was eminently feasible if enterprises of the two countries engage constructively with each other. India, he said, had set a target of achieving 8 per cent growth during its 12th Plan period (2012-17) and proposes to build its physical infrastructure by investing $1.2 trillion during the five-year period. He urged Chinese companies to seize the opportunity and help build world-class infrastructure in India.

Bangalore, May 20
IT bellwether Infosys said today it would challenge a Rs 577-crore income tax demand raised by the I-T Department earlier this month. The demand relates to certain tax benefits on income from software development done overseas at the clients' location and revenue from special economic zones in India, Infosys said.

It said the latest tax demand disregards a clarification by the government in January.

"Infosys is in the process of filing an appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax," the company said.

The company is already facing tax demands worth $214 million for fiscal 2005 to fiscal 2008 "mainly on account of disallowance of a portion of the deduction claimed by the company under Section 10A of the Income Tax Act." — Agencies

Mumbai, May 20
Standard Chartered India today said it has agreed to acquire the private wealth management business of Morgan Stanley India for an undisclosed amount, subject to regulatory approvals.

"Standard Chartered India has agreed to acquire Morgan Stanley's onshore private wealth management business here. The acquisition complements our existing private banking onshore business and will significantly increase our private banking AUM here," it said.

Standard Chartered India had re-entered the private banking business in 2006 after a decade's gap, and currently private banking constitutes around 30 per cent of its business here. Market observers said the MS acquisition is part of StanChart's plan to ramp up its private baking arm here. — Reuters

Mumbai, May 20
India's new inflation-linked bonds will be sold to foreign investors as part of an up to $25 billion investment limit for government debt allotted for demand from overseas, RBI officials said today.

However, inflation-linked bonds will be issued separately from a scheduled weekly auctions of government bonds, the officials said in a teleconference providing details about the upcoming sales of the debt.

The RBI plans to kick off monthly sales of inflation-linked bonds on June 4, with an inaugural sale of Rs 10 billion to Rs 20 billion worth.

The central bank may also consider eventually linking inflation-indexed bonds to the consumer price-led inflation (CPI) once the price measure stabilises, said R. Gandhi, executive director of the RBI, without providing a time frame. The RBI plans to initially index the bonds to the wholesale price index with a four-month lag, unlike elsewhere in the world, where these bonds are typically pegged to CPI.

Govt's annual consumer price inflation, which was launched in February 2012, slowed for the second straight month in April 2013 to 9.39 percent, but remains well above the central bank's comfort level.

Inflation bonds will also be eligible for short-selling, repo transactions. These are part of the several measures govt has taken to wean away investors from gold, which is considered a natural hedge against rising prices. These bonds are being re-introduced after a failed attempt in 1997. — Reuters

New Delhi, May 20
The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on the proposed coal sector regulator is expected to meet later this week to finalise the finer details of the authority which would manage the highly volatile coal sector.

With a number of disputes pending between the power generating companies, including the public sector and the Coal India Ltd (CIL) and its subsidiaries, the EGoM, which met here on May 8 last, had in-principle given its clearance for the setting up of the coal sector regulator.

While giving its nod for the setting up of the coal regulator, the EGoM had said the proposed regulator would have no pricing powers and its say would be limited in recommending the guiding principles of pricing the fuel.

Much against the wishes of the Power Ministry, the EGoM, chaired by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, was also unanimous that the coal regulatory authority would have no say in allocation or de-allocation of coal blocks.

With the pending disputes, the Power Ministry had written to the EGoM that pricing of the coal should be one of the main powers of the coal regulator, as some of the public sector power companies have been complaining that the CIL and its subsidiaries have been supplying sub-standard coal at prices of high-quality coal.

As a result, some of these power generating companies have stopped the payments to these coal companies, leading to a major dispute among them.

The Coal Ministry, on the other hand, is of the view that the coal sector is already de-regulated. It pointed out that coal prices had already been de-controlled in phases between 1996 and 2000 to ensure that the coal companies generate sufficient surplus revenue to finance fresh investments for fresh exploration.

Reports also said in view of the opposition from the Power Ministry, the Coal Ministry had also re-written the draft Coal Regulatory Bill to clip the powers of the watchdog on pricing and allocations of coal blocks.

The EGoM would also discuss the revised draft Bill for the regulator. It had asked the Coal Ministry to make some changes in the draft Bill.