Mumbai, June 6
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India’s largest private sector company, on Thursday announced investments in the country to the tune of Rs 1.5 lakh crore (more than US $26 billion) across its businesses over the next three years. However, the company gave few details of plans for its long-anticipated launch of 4G telecommunications services.

Addressing shareholders at the company’s 39th annual general meeting, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said the company is investing the largest capital in India by any enterprise, public or private, Indian or foreign. Ambani had in the last AGM announced an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore over the next 4-5 years, which has now been expanded to Rs 1.5 lakh crore and the time compressed to three years.

Since the days of its founder, Dhirubhai Ambani, RIL’s AGM is an important event in the corporate and stock market calendar given its huge shareholder base and market capitalization.

The RIL investment programme has been announced at a time when capital expenditure and capacity creation has been sluggish. The upcoming investments by the top 500 companies over this period are half of the Rs 1.5 lakh crore announced by RIL today.

The investments lined up are across span oil and gas exploration and production, refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and broadband and digital services.

Reliance, India's fourth-largest company by market value, has been under pressure from investors worried by its slowing natural gas business and its drive into consumer sectors such as telecoms and retail.

Reliance has for years looked to diversify beyond its core energy business, but profits have been elusive.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, its telecoms unit, is the only Indian firm to have nationwide permits for 4G services. Nearly three years after acquiring the airwaves, it is yet to start commercial services.

Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, told shareholders at the AGM he had a bullish view of the potential for digital services in India, and the unit would more than triple its headcount to 10,000 over next year, but did not say when services will be launched.

"Let me assure sceptics that my continued optimism is based on the significant strides that we at Reliance have taken in the past year - towards engineering and testing a world-class broadband network, and in developing a suite of compelling and synergistic digital services," he said.

"Our impatience to reach our goal demands a sense of urgency, but not careless haste," Ambani said, amid speculation that the company will make its commercial 4G network launch later this year.

Reliance Jio has finalized key vendors and suppliers required for the initial launch of the services, Ambani said. "Together with our partners, we have charted an ambitious plan for the next 12 months, and we at Reliance Jio foresee making rapid progress over this period towards launching our services across India," he said.

Shares in Reliance were down 1.1% at Rs 793.00 at 1:19 p.m. The stock was about 0.5% lower before Ambani began his speech.

Referring to the gas discovery that Reliance, along with partners BP and Niko Resources, announced last month in the KG-D6 block off the east coast, he said more prospects have been lined up for exploration drilling over the next few quarters.

Mumbai, June 6
The rupee recovered after touching the key psychological level of 57 to the dollar on Thursday, helped by dollar selling by some foreign and custodian banks, but sentiment remains cautious ahead of key US data on Friday.

The initial fall pushed the rupee frighteningly close to a record low hit nearly a year earlier as fears of an end to the US Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus sent the dollar higher.

Recent US economic data has been mixed, which has left investors caught between fears the Fed will reduce its stimulus and worries the US economy is still weak.

"The US data has been weak past few times and if that continues tomorrow, expectations of Fed withdrawing the stimulus will be hampered," said Pramod Patil, assistant vice-president, forex and money markets, at United Overseas Bank.

The rupee is not far off the record low of 57.32 hit in late June last year, raising the prospect of a potential intervention from the Reserve Bank of India, although most analysts do not expect bold actions given that the rupee weakness is tracking global factors.

Still, further falls are bound to revive concerns about funding India's current account deficit. The government on Wednesday increased import duty on gold, and the finance ministry is looking at raising the cap on foreign investment in sovereign debt.

"The psychological level of 57 has been hit and thus it invites fears of some intervention. The market is a bit cautious at these levels," said Paresh Nayar, head of fixed income and foreign exchange trading at First Rand Bank.

The partially convertible rupee closed at 56.84/85 per dollar, after earlier touching 57, its weakest since June 28, 2012. The rupee had closed at 56.7250/7350 on Wednesday.

Domestic shares fell on worries about the Fed stimulus programme, tracking Asian indexes that slipped to new 2013 lows. The benchmark BSE Sensex closed down 0.25%.

Traders also cited heavy dollar demand from oil refiners, the largest buyers of the greenback in the domestic currency market in early trade but dollar selling by foreign and custodian banks helped the unit recover.

The rupee is expected to hold in a 56.70-57.10 range until the US nonfarm payroll data, traders said. The data is due after India market close on Friday and the reaction would be seen on Monday. — Reuters

Frankfurt/Main, June 6
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has announced a cut in the bank's growth outlook for the 17 countries that use the euro currency.

The bank said the eurozone would shrink 0.6 per cent this year, down from its previous forecast of minus 0.5 per cent. The ECB nonetheless stuck to its forecast for a gradual recovery starting later in the year.

Draghi spoke on Thursday at a news conference after the bank left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low 0.5%. He said recent surveys of economic optimism had shown improvement and the economy ``should stabilize and recover in the course of the year.''

The eurozone's economy shrank 0.2 per cent in the first quarter, for the sixth straight quarter. Unemployment is at 12.2%, highest since the euro was introduced in 1999.

Some data — such as those on lending to companies — were downbeat, while others had improved. The consensus after a ``very rich discussion'' on the bank's 23-member governing council was that there ``wasn't any directional change that would justify taking action at this time,'' Draghi said.

Draghi added that the bank's governing council had discussed a wide range of measures that go beyond interest rates to help stimulate the eurozone economy. These include lowering its deposit rate for deposits from banks to below zero, steps to use financial markets to increase lending for small businesses, and more central bank lending to banks. But in the end, he said, ``we see no reason to act on all these fronts. These are all measures we keep on the shelf.''

The ECB's key task is to get credit flowing to companies, particularly the small and medium-sized firms that create the most new jobs. Even record low interest rates have not been passed on by banks in the hardest hit parts of the eurozone. So the ECB is looking at other measures such as encouraging banks to package and sell loans to small businesses, a process that would free up more money to lend. But that will take time to set up. — AP

New Delhi, June 6
BlackBerry on Thursday launched the Qwerty version of its Blackberry 10 platform smartphones, the Q10 at Rs 44,990 in India. The BlackBerry Q10 has a squarish screen measuring 3.1 inches (7.8 centimeters) diagonally. The phone offers the combined facility of Qwerty and touchscreen.

BlackBerry India MD Sunil Lalvani at the launch of the BB Q10 smartphone in New Delhi on Thursday. — Tribune photo

The device, available in two colours — black and white, boasts of a 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 dual-core CPU with 16GB internal storage. On the back is a 8-megapixel camera which is capable of taking videos of 1080p. The camera is located on the top left corner of the back and paired with a LED flash. The front has a 2-megapixel camera which is capable of recording videos of 720p.

It has multilanguage support, and users can flick words with one thumb. Also improved are the picture editor, and a multitude of other features that positions the device both as a consumer device and an enterprise device simultaneously.

The battery life is estimated at up to 13.5 hours talk time (3G only). Another feature is a mini-HDMI port to allow connections to a television or projector.

The BlackBerry Q10 has the ability to flick words while typing, in effect translating into an experience that allows writing without typing.

Apps like Facebook have been completely integrated with the BlackBerry 10 hub. All emails and notifications from such applications as Twitter and Facebook go to the BlackBerry Hub, a nerve center accessible with a finger swipe even if you have another application open. One can peek into it and open an email, or return to the previous application without opening the email. — Agencies

New Delhi, June 6
Gold prices today shot up to a five-week high rising by Rs 430 to Rs 28,090 per 10 grams in the capital on increased stockists buying, following government decision to hike import duty on the precious metal amid firm global cues.

Trading sentiment was bolstered the as government decided to hike import duty on gold from 6% to 8% to curb a record current-account deficit at a time when the World Gold Council predicts record quarterly demand for the metal in India. A firming trend overseas on strong dollar and and investors shifting their funds from melting equities to bullion further influenced the sentiment.

Gold in New York rose by 0.19% to $1,402.70 an ounce.

With the general firming trend, silver also advanced on rising demand from industrial units and coin makers.

On the domestic front, gold of 99.9 and 99.5 per cent purity shot up by Rs 430 each to Rs 28,090 and Rs 27,890 per 10 grams, respectively, a level last seen on April 29. Sovereigns added Rs 100 to Rs 24,200 per piece of eight grams.

However, silver ready fell by Rs 60 to Rs 44,540 per kg and weekly-based delivery by Rs 10 to Rs 43,970 per kg. Silver coins spurted by Rs 2,000 to Rs 79,000 for buying and Rs 80,000 for selling of 100 pieces. — PTI