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| Wednesday, July 19, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Anti-dumping duty on acrylic imposed Unit at Mohali to make Chinese TV Mobile banking is here
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Centre to hike duty drawback rate on carpets High-speed wagons for ICD 60,000 Indians die every year in road accidents Sops for Ambuja cement? Redforwomen ties up with eight websites
NEW DELHI, July 18 (PTI) — The Commerce Ministry has imposed definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of acrylic fibre from
Taiwan. The amount of anti-dumping duty against Taiwanese firm Formosa Plastics Corporations has been fixed at $ 0.14 per kg of acrylic fibre while for all other exporters from Taiwan, it has been fixed at $ 0.24 per kg. “Acrylic fibre originating in or exported from Taiwan has been exported to India below its normal value ... injury has been caused to the domestic industry by the dumping of acrylic fibre originating in or exported from Taiwan,” the designated authority under the Commerce Ministry which carried out the investigation said. In case of Formosa Plastics Corporation, the authority said the dumping margin was 12.89 per cent while for other Taiwanese exporters it was 25.52 per cent. The landed value of imports of acrylic fibre from Taiwan to India had been at a price lower than the non-injurious price for the domestic industry thus preventing the latter from increasing its sales price and eroding its profitability, it said. Three Indian firms — Indian Acrylics, Pasupati Acrylon and Consolidated Fibre and Chemicals had approached the authority alleging dumping of acrylic fibre from Taiwan following which the authority initiated the investigation. The three Indian firms said they had produced 59,168 metric tonnes of acrylic fibre in 1998-99 of a total domestic production of 80,268 metric tonnes and therefore had the standing to file the petition on behalf of the domestic industry which the authority accepted. The designated authority said the quantity of imports of acrylic fibre from Taiwan at 1590 metric tonnes were more than the minimum as required under the anti-dumping rules and there had been increase in the share of imports from Taiwan relative to the total imports of acrylic fibre in
India. However, Formosa Plastics Corporations pleaded that as per published statistics from Taiwan, the exports totalled only 127 metric tonnes which represents 3.8 per cent of total imports of acrylic fibre in
India during the period of investigation. But, the authority dismissed its contention saying that even based on these figures, the quantum of imports were higher than the minimum requirement under the rules. “The authority concludes that the domestic industry has suffered material injury and the injury to domestic industry has been caused due to dumped imports,” it said adding that the purpose of the investigation was to ensure that acrylic fibre was imported at a fair price. |
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Unit at Mohali to make Chinese TV NEW DELHI, July 18 — The Chinese consumer electronics major, TCL Holding Limited, plans to set up a colour television manufacturing unit in Mohali. The $ 1.8 billion company today entered into a joint venture with Baron International. ‘‘Mohali is one of the centres where the joint venture company is planning to set up its manufacturing units. Other centres under consideration are Baroda, Hyderabad and Noida,’’ the CEO of TCL Baron India Limited, Mr Sanjay Chimnani, told The Tribune. The manufacturing unit will be set up with an initial investment of Rs 135 crore, with TCL holding 51 per cent share. Mr Chimnani said: ‘‘the company plans to manufacture with 40 to 45 per cent localisation of its components.’’ Disclosing the pricing strategy, he said ‘‘the company plans to price its product about 15 to 20 per cent lower than the currently available models of leading brands.’’ ‘‘We would earn our profits by sheer volumes,’’ Mr Chimnani said. He said the company plans to achieve a turnover of Rs 400 crore during the first year, which would increase to Rs 600 crore and Rs 900 crore by the third year of operations. ‘‘By this joint venture, we hope to capture 6 per cent of the colour TV market share in the country,’’ he added. Mr Chimnani said: ‘‘the company would keenly explore the rural market, whose potential has not been fully tapped so far. And, we would carry special advertisement and promotion campaigns to catch their attention.’’ The company plans to enter the Indian market in three phases. During the first phase, it would introduce TV, VCD and DVD and in the second phase, which is likely to be before the onset of summer next year, whitegoods like air-conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. In the third phase, internet access devices, personal computers and basic telephones would be introduced. The company, which did its testmarketing in Punjab, said ‘‘the state and the entire region has great potential for these goods. We find a great market for these goods there.’’ The TCL Chairman, Mr Li Dong Sheng, said India is one of the fastest growing markets in consumer electronics presenting our company an opportunity to provide cutting-edge consumer electronic offering.’’ ‘‘By positioning ourselves at the forefront of the entertainment, broadcast, telecom and IT revolution sweeping India, in partnership with Baron, we will maximise opportunities and offer ‘value for money’ products,’’ he added. The Chinese company has a 14 per cent market share in the CTV sector in its home turf and has 4.7 per cent market share in the whitegoods sector. The gross industrial product of TCL from 1990 to 1996 increased 41 times at an annual compound growth rate of 70 per cent.
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Mobile banking is here CHANDIGARH, July 18 — Bank of Punjab today tied up with Spice Telecom to provide mobile banking in Punjab and Chandigarh from tomorrow. The bank soon expects to extend this service to its customers in Delhi and Mumbai. Customers will no longer have to visit the bank for their day-to-day needs. ‘‘It will be as good as carrying the bank in your pocket, enabling you to access your bank account from your mobile phone, anytime, anywhere in the world’’, said a bank release here. Mobile banking allows a customer to conduct transactions like balance inquiry, cheque book request and a mini statement giving last five transactions in the account. Besides, Spice customers can pay their cellular phone bills online anytime and from anywhere. Those having a pre-paid card can charge the card online simply by pressing a few buttons on the cellular phone. Bank of Punjab is the first bank in India to have come out with this facility for its customers. |
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Centre to hike duty drawback rate on carpets SRINAGAR, July 18 (PTI) — The Centre has agreed to increase the duty draw back rate on hand-knitted and hand-made woollen and silk carpets exported from Jammu and Kashmir, Minister for Industries and Commerce Sheikh Mustafa Kamaal has said. This decision will entitle carpet traders to get refund of a portion of money paid by them as duty on carpets exported from the state and also boost carpet exports which have already touched Rs 400 crore, he said in a statement here today. A notification to this effect was issued by the Union Ministry of Finance recently. As per the revised rates, the duty drawback on handmade and handknitted woollen carpets has been increased to 10 per cent with a ceiling of Rs 180 per square metre as compared to 10 per cent or maximum of Rs 132 per square metre. He said the duty drawback rate on handmade silk carpets has been increased to 12 per cent of FOB (freight on board) value subject to a maximum ceiling of Rs 625 per square metre. The government had taken concrete steps to promote this export-oriented industry and the main thrust would be on quality and design development in addition to search for new export markets. Carpet traders would be provided with the latest export trades and marketing strategies through specialised training programmes at Indian Institute of Carpet Technology, Bhadohi (Uttar Pradesh). Kamaal said the state government with the assistance of the Centre will soon set up a craft development institute at a cost of Rs 9 crore at Srinagar for design and technology upgradation in the carpet sector. He said Indian Institute of Technology had been assigned the task of development of improved tools, moisture measuring devices, small size washing and finishing plants to facilitate production of quality carpets with value addition. Structure, incentives and stipend to the workers and trainees. On government’s plans to expand marketing network for Kashmir handicrafts in the national and international markets, the minister said a website on handicrafts would be launched soon to popularise handicrafts world-over. |
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High-speed wagons for ICD NEW DELHI, July 18 — The Inland Container Depot at Tughlakabad, the northern regional headquarters of the Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR) which caters to Delhi and cities in Punjab and Haryana, has made new efforts to ensure customer satisfaction. Recent developments aimed at customer satisfaction include provision of an enquiry terminal of the main computer system to major shipping lines and other users, updating summaries of trains running between New Delhi and Mumbai on the Internet, introduction of high speed wagons, overnight shifting of export containers and introduction of new trains to Nava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT), one of the terminals at JNPT port in Mumbai. Commissioned in September ’93, the Inland Container Depot has a vast hinterland encompassing all north-western States. The main points include Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Saharanpur, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Rewari, Sonepat, Panipat, Kurukshetra,
Amritsar, Ludhiana, Moga and Jaipur. The ICD handles 25,000 containers every month. The depot has facilities of warehousing (both for imports and exports cargo), container and cargo handling, composite billing, documentation, packaging, servicing and repair of containers, fumigation with complete facilities of transportation, enquiries and banking and customs clearance and cargo inspection for exporters, importers and shipping lines within the custom bonded
area. Mr K.L. Pandey, Chief General Manager, northern region, CONCOR, told TNS that the fast wagons also called freight Rajdhanis (CON RAJ) cover a distance of 100 km per hour. These trains run between TKD and Jawahalal Nehru Port Trust. The depot provides 55 charging points for running the grounded containers on refrigerator units. Once they are loaded on to trains, the TKD provides electric supply.
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60,000 Indians die every year in road accidents NAMAKKAL (Chennai): This district headquarters town of Tamil Nadu with a population of four lakh is known for its Hanuman temple, poultry farms (second largest egg-producer in the country after Pune), trucking business (almost every family is into it) and Ashok Leyland’s truck driver training centre. The link with Punjab is obvious. Punjabis too love trucks and chicken. But there is no training centre in Punjab. Bus, truck or tractor drivers learn it on the road the hard way, sometimes with fatal consequences. Poultry is a sound business for truck drivers’ families since eggs and chicken can be taken to the best possible market. But Punjabi drivers’ interest in poultry is confined to consuming chicken and eggs. Not long ago Namakkal was a backward area. Farming depended on rain, that too was scarce. The superstitious people did not cover Hanuman’s statue in the temple since they believed it kept growing year by year. The economic profile of the area changed rapidly after Ashok Leyland set up a centre to train drivers in October, 1995. Today almost every family owns one or two trucks or/and runs truck body building business. Almost each house has a poultry farm of at least 10,000 birds. When Ashok Leyland offered to set up a similar centre in Punjab, the Chief Minister lapped up the idea. An MoU was signed on September 24, 1999. The Punjab Government offered Ashok Leyland 25 acres at Reona Uncha village in Sirhind block of Fatehgarh Sahib district for 99 years on lease on an annual rental of Rs 1.5 lakh to be increased by 10 per cent every three years. When the government tried to get its land vacated, farmers went to court. The case is still pending. An important project has got bogged down in a legal wrangle. According to a survey by the Loss Prevention Society, 60,000 Indians die annually in road accidents. Every seventh minute one person is killed in an accident. While in the USA the fatal accident rate is 2.5 per 10,000; in India it is 47.5 per 10,000. There are four crore vehicles on Indian roads — 20 per cent of these are four-wheelers. Fortyfive per cent of the accidents involve four-wheelers. And how many driver training centres are there in the country? Just one by Ashok Leyland for drivers of heavy vehicles. For car drivers there is one in Delhi started by Maruti Udyog recently. The country’s largest auto maker, Telco, has no such centre. Ashok Leyland’s centre here is spread over 25 acres having up to six-lane roads, as ‘‘S’’ bend, an ‘‘8’’ bend and a hair-pin bend, humps and dips, a ‘‘Y’’ junction, speed-breakers and different parking bays. Traffic markings, electronic signals, signboards and streetlights for night driving dot the campus roads. An aesthetically designed 2500 sq ft building houses four classrooms, a library, a model room, a laboratory, a cafeteria and an open air theatre. ‘‘Facilities available at the Namakkal centre will be replicated at Rajpura (the site is near this town). Once possession of the land is given, the project will be completed in two years. It will cost Rs 2 crore’’, Mr K.N. Krishnamurthy, General Manager-Marketing & Development of Ashok Leyland, told a team of newsmen from Chandigarh. The company plans to put up an electronic driving simulator and a hostel at Namakkal, while these two are not on the first-phase agenda for Rajpura. The Namakkal centre cost the company Rs 3.5 crore at the 1995 prices, while the Rajpura project cost is to be Rs 2 crore. According to Mr S.V. Bothanatha Saie, Deputy Manager (Driver Training), the Namakkal centre offers five types of training courses: (a) three-day training on safe transportation of hazardous goods (Rs 400); (b) a one-day refresher course on safe transportation of hazardous goods (Rs 150); (c) a five-day refresher course for experienced drivers (Rs 2000) (d) five-day training for trainers of driving school instructors (Rs 2000); and (e) 90-day training in heavy vehicle driving (Rs 10,000). Besides training is also given in yoga (to keep mentally fit), karate (to fight highway robbers), insurance, public behaviour, providing first-aid and are informed about AIDS dangers.
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Sops for Ambuja cement? SHIMLA, July 18 — A meeting of the high-powered committee to decide the controversial issue of providing incentives worth crores of rupees to a leading cement manufacturing company in Himachal Pradesh was again adjourned here today as some of its important members failed to turn up. This is for the second time that the meeting had to be adjourned in the absence of certain members. The earlier adjournment was on July 7. It is learnt that some high-ups were in favour of providing sops to the company, whereas a majority of the members were against the move. A member of the committee told TNS that a refund of about Rs 40 crore would have to be made to the company only by the H.P. State Electricity Board (HPSEB) in case these incentives tailored for the particular company are approved. This will be besides other concessions under the sales tax. The BJP-HVC combine government, which was initially deadly against the previous Congress regime for having granted certain concessions to Ambuja Cement Company by declaring it as a prestigious unit, was now itself allegedly trying to find ways to shower sops on them. The issue under consideration was the reported representation of the company which has pointed out that it was entitled to a freeze in power tariff ever since it came into production and the subsequent increase in tariff should not be applied to it as was provided in the incentives. The company was also reportedly seeking incentive on electricity duty. |
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Redforwomen ties up with eight websites NEW
DELHI, July 18 — The website, www.redforwomen.com, which had caught the imagination of many with its “flexi” job option concept, has attracted the attention of other portals and they have entered into an alliance. The portals that have tied up with this site were paisapower.com, indianwomanonline.com, mustformums.com, coolstartup.com, 123india.com and Citibank. Each of these portals bring their niche products, which the net surfers can avail of while logging on to redforwomen.com “Flexi can be anything - consulting, home business, projects, retainerships or part time,” said Ms Rachna Chhachhi, CEO of redforwomen.com, the site which provides flexi opportunities for women. The idea goes beyond the dot com, as flexi-time is the need of the hour in India and South Asia. In the West, this concept is accepted and there are laws in favour of flexibility of work, she added. The website gives women the freedom to either post a resume and get flexi-job or choose from the 80 business models available in the site.
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TV show creates two e-millionaires in UK LONDON: Britain had two new Internet “millionaires” on Monday after the winners of a TV search for the best e-commerce ideas pocketed seven-figure cheques. A consortium of venture capitalists invested one million pounds ($ 1.6 million) in each to the two winners of the E-Millionaire Show on Channel Four, chosen on Sunday night from some 7,000 entrants. Charity worker Joe Rajko aims to sell services and goods to disabled people through his e-commerce site, youreable.com. Colin Robinson plans to set up a schoolsforchools.com an online marketplace for Britain’s nearly 30,000 schools to buy supplies using their combined purchasing power. The consortium, including technology company Bright Station, Internet incubator Oxygen Holdings, Skill Capital, Andersen Consulting and BM Investments, will own a third of the new startups. — Reuters It’s Dirty Sole Society NEW YORK: It may not rank among the great issues of the day, such as the death penalty, healthcare, or what’s wrong with the Yankees baseball team’s pitching staff, but there are those, none the less, who are prepared to pay the ultimate price for it. “I’ll take a bullet for the cause,” says Gordon Hlavenka, 42. The cause? Walking around without shoes. No one has been threatened with a gun yet, but members of the Dirty Sole Society do endure scorn and sneering. Mr Hlavenka, for instance, recently strode purposefully through a bank, a market, a McDonald’s restaurant and a Wal-Mart supermarket in a Chicago suburb, daring the pillars of the American mall to object to his bare feet. A Wal-Mart employee obliged. “You can’t walk around here without shoes, that’s against the law.” Actually, it isn’t. Nor is it illegal to drive barefoot, unless you happen to find yourself on a motorcycle in Alabama, though some other states warn against the practice. The society, which has followers throughout the United States, exists to promote the physical and spiritual elevation it claims is to be derived from discarding socks and shoes. Members take as one of their texts an article written in 1914 by James Leith Macbeth Bain, the Scottish mystic poet and spiritual healer otherwise known as Brother James.
— The Guardian Microsoft may replace Coke NEW
YORK: Microsoft Corp. has almost muscled out Coca Cola as the world’s most valuable brand, according to a survey. Despite its troubles with the U.S. Justice Department, Microsoft came in as a close second with its brand valued at $ 70.2 billion, behind Coca Cola’s $ 72.5 billion value, which was down 13 per cent from last year. The survey, conducted by Interbrand, a New York-based consulting firm, showed technology names like Microsoft, Intel Corp. And Nokia Corp. were strong as a group, but old economy heavy hitters such as General Electric Co., Walt Disney Co. and
McDonald's Corp. were also represented in the top 10. U.S. Companies dominated the ranking, holding 42 of the top 75 slots. But they lost ground in the auto sector, with foreign car companies like Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota Motor Corp. overshadowing
US auto-makers. Interbrand’s valuation process looks at future economic earnings, the role of the brand in those earnings and the risk profile of the brand’s expected earnings. Interbrand’s top 10: 1. Coca-cola 72.5 billion 2. Microsoft 70.2 billion 3. IBM 53.2 billion 4. Intel 39.0 billion 5. Nokia 38.5 billion 6. General Electric 38.1 billion 7. Ford 36.4 billion 8. Disney 33.6 billion 9. McDonald’s 27.9 billion 10. AT T Corp. 25.5 billion — Reuters
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ABB net declines NEW
DELHI, July 18 (PTI) — Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Ltd today reported a sharp 40.81 per cent dip in net profits at Rs 10.85 crore in the second quarter ended June 30 as compared to Rs 18.33 crore profits during the same period last year. Company sales declined 13.7 per cent to Rs 164.53 crore as against Rs 190.8 crore recorded during April-June 1999. Net profit declined 12 per cent to Rs 11.6 crore in January-June 2000 as compared to Rs 13.2 crore in the same period last year while sales dipped 6.27 per cent to Rs 321.2 crore as against Rs 342.7 crore in first half of 1999. Blue Dart net doubles NEW
DELHI, July 18 (PTI) — Blue Dart Express Ltd today said its profit had more than doubled to Rs 3.8 crore in the first quarter ended June 30 as against Rs 1.82 crore during the corresponding period in the previous year. Company sales grew 26 per cent to Rs 56.45 crore as compared to Rs 44.84 crore in April-June 1999. |
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Morepen PAT soars NEW DELHI, July 18 — Morepen Laboratories Ltd profit after tax registered a growth of 137 per cent at Rs 221 million as compared to Rs 93 million in the first quarter of last year. The company’s gross turnover also went up by 50 per cent to reach Rs 1,067 million from Rs 710 million in the corresponding period of 1999. The outstanding performance of Morepen is due to the recent export of Loratadine as part supply of an order of $ 20 million from Europe. With a leadership position in its core business of generic drugs and a market capitalisation of over $ 300 million. NEW DELHI, July 18
(UNI) — The Board of Directors of Castrol India Limited (CIL) today approved a 25 per cent interim dividend for the 2000 fiscal, despite registering a 19.2 per cent decline in net profit in the first half of the year. Its net profit for the first half of the fiscal stood at Rs 78.08 crore, down from Rs 96.64 crore a year ago. Net sales were, however, higher at Rs 611.85 crore, up 6.7 per cent from Rs 573.50 crore in the same period a year ago. |
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Insurance ban CII meet FDI inflow NSE trading New PSB ED Networking Freecard.com Zen-D price |
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