B U S I N E S S | Sunday, January 17, 1999 |
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US court ruling to affect
telecom tariff rates |
Woollens export declines FIPB
clears Rs 902 crore proposals |
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US court
ruling to affect telecom tariff rates NEW DELHI, Jan 16 A US court ruling upholding an order of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibiting US telecom companies from paying foreign carriers call termination charges in excess of a specified benchmark rates will not affect the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd in the short run, but it would have long term implications for the countrys telecom rates. According to information received by the VSNL here, the US Court of Appeals has issued a decision rejecting the appeals made by a group of international carriers against FCCs settlement rate benchmark decision. The court has held that the FCC has the authority to establish the amount which US carriers may pay for foreign termination services but has no authority to regulate foreign carriers. Call termination charges are collected by telecom countries in the country receiving a call from the foreign firm carrying the call for the service of transmitting the call through the local network to the recipient of the call. At present the call termination charges are negotiated on a bilateral basis between the countries and in the case of India these charges are normally on a higher basis. This enables the cross-subsidisation of domestic telecom operations by international telecom traffic. Though the agreement between the USA and India telecom operator ensures that carriers from both the countries pay the charges on a reciprocal basis, the agreement has been to the disadvantage of the USA as the calls from the USA to India are far more than what is made from India to the USA. The FCC had tried to check this trend by imposing a benchmark rate for the US carriers, a move which was challenged by a group of international carriers. According to the VSNL, the operative part of the US courts judgement clearly indicates that while the FCC establishes the benchmark, the court does not endorse the FCCs ability to enforce the benchmark against foreign carriers who refuse to accept them. In view of the inability of the US carriers to enforce the benchmark rates, there is no material change in view of VSNL in the bilateral nature of the accounting rate negotiations process. VSNL has been able to settle the accounting rates with the US carriers for 1997 and 1998 which have been formally endorsed and approved by the FCC, the Indian carrier said. Discussions for the forthcoming year are currently under progress and no difficulty is anticipated even after the FCC judgement which only reflects the legalities of FCCs own actions in their country. Though the US courts order has no immediate bearing on the rates charged by the VSNL, telecom experts say this could have a long term implication for the telecom tariff rates in the country. The multilateral discussion process is underway at the international telecom union for defining the termination rates which each country should pay for terminating international traffic in its territory based on actual costs. ITU guidelines on this matter would become benchmarks for global settlement process. VSNL said even on this
account it was protected from erosion of revenues as it
had a revenue sharing agreement with the Department of
Telecom. The Telecom Commission, as a run up to the GDR
issue of VSNL has reaffirmed the continuance of the
revenue sharing formula till its expiry in 2002 and the
monopoly of VSNL till 2004. |
Woollens
export declines LUDHIANA, Jan 16 India is unlikely to achieve the export targets of wool and woollens set for the current financial year ending March 31, 1999. As a matter of fact, there has been a negative growth in the export of worsted fabrics, shawls, scarves and woollen yarn, according to official data made available here today by Wool and Woollens Export Promotion Council, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. Woollen Knitwear, machine made carpets and wool tops have shown only a marginal increase. Only acrylic knitwear has recorded a respectable growth. In the overall export of woollen products, there is a decrease of 7 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year, says Mr Raj Chaudhry, Chairman of the council. In an interview here today, Mr Chaudhary ascribed the decrease in exports mainly to the overall recession in the western market and devaluation of the currency in the Far East countries. Mr Chaudhary says that the council has been urging the Government of India to hand over to the council the quota administration to knitwear as was being done prior to 1997. We had cautioned the government that any delay in this regard will adversely affect the exports. Our apprehensions have now been proved true by the events. He complains that while India has met most of its commitments under WTO by reducing the tariff rate in line with WTO, countries having quota regimes are resorting to a new kind of non-tariff barriers through technical regulations laying down high standards of health, safety and environment etc for the exporting countries. Mr Chaudhary says that
while some of these legislations could be due to a
genuine concern about the environment. But the timing of
the legislation and the past experience has created
doubts in the developing countries that this might well
be a move to raise new tariff barriers in preparation for
the year 2005 by the developing countries. It is,
therefore, apprehended that countries like India may find
themselves in a situation where they have opened their
domestic markets to foreign competition but cannot
compete in the international market because of failure to
meet the ever increasing technical standards of the
developed countries. |
FIPB clears Rs 902 crore proposals NEW DELHI, Jan 16 (PTI) The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) today cleared Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) proposals worth Rs 902 crore, including a $130 million convertible Eurobond issue by Essar Steel. The foreign currency convertible bond of about Rs 550 crore would go towards funding equity component of the Rs 1,840 crore Essar pellet project in Vishakhapatnam, Industry Ministry sources said. After the conversion of bonds, the foreign equity in the project will increase to 54 per cent while the domestic component will go down from 76 per cent to 34 per cent. The proposal envisages manufacture of pellets using iron ore fines from Bailadila mines. The board also cleared a proposal by Fidis Spa of Italy to set up a joint venture in the country for financial services and auto financing, basically meant for Fiat range of vehicles. Fidis will invest about Rs 147 crore to pick up 51 per cent stake in the joint venture. The remaining 49 per cent will be held by Sundaram Fastners. Among other proposals cleared by the board are BPL Cellular, Marubeni Corporation, YKK and ABB Asia. BPL Cellular has been allowed to expand paid up capital in its joint venture with France Telecom through a rights issue. The sources said France Telecom will bring in Rs 7.67 crore to subscribe to the issue and the stake of both the partners will remain the same. Marubeni India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marubeni Corporation, Japan, has been allowed to increase its capitalisation to $ 15 million from the existing $ 5 million, Marubeni India is engaged in trading activities. Similarly, YKK, an integrated Zip manufacturer, has also been allowed to increase its equity capital from $ 25 million to $ 30 million. FIPB also allowed ABB Asias proposal to increase its stake in its joint venture with Intron India to 60 per cent from existing 30 per cent. ABB Asia will bring in Rs 10.8 lakh to increase its stake in the joint venture company, which manufactures actuator pumps. The board also cleared a proposal by Nissin Corporation of Japan to set up a joint venture with ABC India Ltd for international freight forwarding, Nissin would bring in Rs 1.02 crore as its stake in the joint venture. A proposal by Suessen Asia, which manufactures components for textile spinning machinery, to issue non-convertible redeemable shares worth Rs 11 crore has also been cleared by FIPB.
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Cost
management seminar begins CHANDIGARH, Jan 16 A two-day seminar on Strategic Cost Management organised by University Business Schools, Chandigarh Chapter of Cost Accountants, inaugurated here today, by Mr A.K. Babbar Executive Director HMT Ltd., Pinjore. The key note address delivered by Padam Shri Chandra Mohan. Other present were; Prof. Parmajit Singh, Prof. S.P. Singh, Mr K.V. Ramnamurthy. Mr Piera Mevellece from France presented the technicals paper. Mr S.K. Tuteja, Chairman PSEB, chaired the technical session. First time in India the technical paper was presented from USA through video conference at University Business School. The topic of the seminar is the need of changing scenario of liberalisation, globalisation and increasing competition. Technical sessions covered topic as such, cost and value, strategic cost management, activity based costing, cost management with a strategic emphasis, analysis of strategic management. Mr O. K. Aggarwal was the seminar coordinator
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Implementation
of ST laws in Haryana CAN the procedure for refund as laid down in the statutory provisions relating to the sales tax laws be amended by the Commissioner? This precisely is the significant question that arises from a circular which was issued by the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Haryana, Chandigarh, in the recent past. Stipulating that no refund involving amount of or more than Rs 50,000 under the provisions of the sales tax laws shall henceforth be issued by the appropriate authorities without prior approval, it has been stated in the communication that all cases falling in the aforesaid category would be first sent to the Commissioner for orders. Ironically, Section 43 of the Haryana General Sales Tax Act, 1973, which primarily governs the procedure for refunds does not at all speak of seeking prior approval from the officer heading the department. A reading of the plain language employed by the state legislature in this statutory provision reveals it gives independent powers to the assessing authorities to determine the refunds. Even a study of the detailed procedure as laid down in corresponding rules 35 and 36 of the Haryana General Sales Tax Rules, 1975, regarding the issue of refunds makes one aware of the legal position that the powers to determine the refunds are exclusively vested with the assessing authorities except that sub-rule (1) of rule 36, inter alia, requires that if the amount to be refunded exceeds Rs 2000, the assessing authority concerned shall submit the record of the case together with his recommendations to the officer in charge of the district for orders. Similarly, rule 24-A of the Haryana General Sales Tax Rules, 1975, which, too, relates to the procedure for refunds in certain cases dresses the assessing authorities with the exclusive and independent powers to determine the refunds if found due to the assessees. One, therefore, is at a loss to see as to how the new procedure of seeking prior approval from the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Haryana, for refunds is sought to be introduced to the existing scheme of the Act. Even the powers of general superintendence and collection of tax leviable as provided in rule 3 of the Haryana General Sales Tax Rules, 1975, cannot be used to alter altogether the basic structure of the Act. Another important aspect of the circular is that it encroaches upon the powers of the tribunal, high court, and even the Supreme Court in the sense that if a refund of any amount paid by any dealer or other person becomes payable as a result of the order of any appellate tribunal or the high court or the Supreme Court will it be appropriate to get the validity of that order examined from the Commissioner for the purpose of issuing the refund? When contacted, the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Haryana, Chandigarh, told this writer that the circular was issued for administrative reasons as some cases of illegal refunds had come to notice. Interestingly enough, Section 40 of the Haryana General Sales Tax Act, 1973, gives wide powers to the Commissioner to call for the record of any case for the purposes of satisfying himself as to the legality or propriety of any proceedings or of any order made therein and to correct the errors involved, if any. There has been a great
resentment among the trading community as well as the
taxation lawyers over the manner in which the procedure
has been changed and that the unanimous feeling is that
this circular is not only without jurisdiction but it
will cause undue hardships to the tax payers which could
well have been avoided. |
Implications
of buyback The Government by an ordinance has allowed companies to buy their own shares which was so far restricted under the Companies Act, 1956. In this regard, the Companies (Amendment) Bill 1998 was also placed before the Lok Sabha but has not been passed for the reasons best known to the parliamentarians and thus the ordinance remains effective or fresh ordinance issued. There are newspaper reports that the government has asked five Public Sector Undertakings to prepare themselves for buy back of shares from the government by the end of the current financial year to balance the fiscal deficit in this year. When the government offloads the holding in a public sector company, an important point to be kept in mind is that status of a government company as defined under Section 617 of the Companies Act is not altered. In case a government undertaking does not remain to be so there will be consequential ramifications under Income-Tax Law. For instance, a charitable/religious institution required to make investments of the surplus funds in Public Sector Undertakings as per Section 11(5) of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 will be effected, Clause (g) of Section 11 (5) prescribing mode of investment of funds reads as. Therefore, Charitable/Religious Trusts who have invested their available surplus funds to avail Income-Tax exemption will have to withdraw funds (deposits) before maturity, and invest in some other government owned company. The interest rate on pre-matured withdrawal of deposits is less by 1 per cent to 2 per cent for the entire period of investment in such undertaking. Thus such institutions will be put to avoidable financial loss besides inconvenience. It is, therefore, proper for the government to make consequential amendments under the Income-Tax Law also to enable them to allow the funds remain invested till maturity or for some more period with the government undertaking so that they are not put to any financial loss. It is understood that the charitable religious institutions have made huge investments of their funds in government undertakings as deposits.
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