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Thursday,
September 18, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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India gets
thumbs-up from MNCs Pakistan
businessmen take U-turn
Cell, basic
operators differ on fee India to prepay
$2.9 b costly loans |
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Divert to cash
crops, says Chautala Chandigarh, September 17Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala today urged farmers to divert to cash crops like cotton, sugarcane, pulses, floriculture and horticulture in view of the changing scenario in the agriculture sector.
Chamber urges HP
to employ outsiders Unichem to set up
unit in Brazil
Ranbaxy unveils cholesterol
drug
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India gets thumbs-up from MNCs New Delhi, September 17 At the same time, however, they cautioned that recent delays in tax reform and the slowdown in privatisation could limit India’s ability to transform offshore attraction into significantly larger FDI inflows. Significantly, India is ranked ahead of apparently more developed nations such as the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Italy, Brazil, Canada and Japan but behind its far-eastern neighbour China, which ranked first in the latest foreign direct investment confidence index brought out by global management consulting firm A T Kearney. A T Kearney FDI Index is based on an annual survey of executives from the world’s largest companies who are asked to rank countries on various parameters of FDI attractiveness. Global executives indicated a greater future likelihood to invest in the emerging markets than in industrialised countries and of global investors committing FDI to new markets, one in then will enter the Indian market over the next three years. “India’s low-cost, English-speaking, IT-savvy labour force coupled with a large market potential underpin global executive’s improved outlook and investment confidence this year”, the
management consulting firm said. Manufacturing investors rank India among the top six most preferred investment locations and nearly a one-third are more optimistic on the Indian market. Services sector investors rank India as the fourth most attractive this year, up from the 14th place in 2002. As a leading offshore location, India received investments from GE Capital, American Express, Citibank, Conseco, British Airways, Dell Computer and Reuters, resulting in the development of call centre, back office support and facilities to handle knowledge-intensive activities such as
risk-modeling and financial analysis, the report said. However, the level of FDI remains significantly lower than China as investors face a highly bureaucratic business climate as well as
ceilings on foreign ownership in India. “As a result, many firms simply outsource by hiring Indian firms to manage business processes without making direct investments”, the report said. India failed to capture the top spot in any attribute except for highly educated workforce. However, it took second behind China with regard to market growth and potential and unit costs. India, along with Poland, dominated the education category, which along with market size and potential appear to be that
country's overriding differentiating factors for global investors, the A T Kearney report said. “Nonetheless, its bureaucratic business environment is likely to lead investors to give it low standing for tax regime, transparency, and access to export markets”, it said. Executives surveyed by A T Kearney said the rising confidence in China and other key emerging markets has resulted in the developing markets dominating the top 10 most preferred FDI destinations for the first time since 1998. Lower labour costs and more promising returns in the developing markets have led investors to favour emerging market destinations, in particular for offshoring IT and business processes. “Several factors are converging to create a virtuous cycle of offshore investment”, A T Kearney Vice- President and Managing Director of the firm’s Global Business Policy Council, which conducts the study, Mr Paul A Laudicina, said. “Corporations are deploying multi-country strategies to reduce costs, spread risks and ensure business continuity. At the same time, developing economies are making advances in education and liberalising their service sectors to attract FDI. While not all offshore activities result in FDI, the offshore imperative is increasingly impacting global investors’ FDI decision calculus”, Mr Laudicina said.
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Pakistan businessmen take U-turn Wagah (Amritsar), September 17 Taking a U-turn, leader of the Pakistani delegation Mr Amin Haswani said it would be futile to talk about MFN status till India prepared a road map to resume train and air services which had remained suspended since December, 2001. Without the rail and air links the trade talks would not yield any results. Earlier he had asserted that they would
pressure the government to give the MFN status as early as possible to pave way for a long-term trade relations with India. Commenting on the two-day business meet organised by the CII in New Delhi, Mr Hashmi said they were looking for a long-term trade perspective with India. He said they had formed terms of experts to identify the potential areas among the trade, industry, services and communication sectors. The teams would present a report after studying the potential in both countries for preparing a road map to be presented at the next meeting to be held in Pakistan in November. He said they had constituted two forums — the India-Pak CEOs’ Business Forum and the Pakistan-India CEOs’ Business Forum — for both countries to promote trade relations, which could play a very crucial role to build up economics of the two
neigbours. A comprehensive report for long-term trade perspectives would be presented to both countries, which would form the bases for talks for sustained business ties. Mr Hashmi said Pakistan businessmen were looking forward and have the requisite international exposure and could match Indian business skills. Pakistani women too have liberal outlook and could play significant role in forging better business relations with India. Commenting upon the Pakistan economy, he asserted that their stock market was booming and the economy was growing. He hoped that the Indo-Pak business relation would further boost their economy.
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Cell, basic operators differ on fee New Delhi, September 17 Consumer forums, on the other hand, alleged that subscribers were taken for a ride by both kind of operators. Today’s Open House, organised by TRAI comes in the wake of the TDSAT judgement which ruled that a level-playing field should be created between fixed and cellular operators and higher licence fee should be imposed on the former as WLL service was essentially a value addition. The TDSAT has given TRAI four weeks time to create the level-playing field. Secretary General S.C. Khanna contested the opinion of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) which has called for imposition of additional fee on WLL operators. Mr Khanna noted that cellular operators were offering various value-added services without shelling out any additional fee, by the same logic since WLL is a value-added service no additional fee should be imposed upon them. He said basic operators did not object when fax services faced competition from Internet telephony and also when cellular operators set up STD PCOs. “We also did not raise any voice when our fax services faced competition from Internet telephony Mr Khanna said. COAI Secretary-General T V Ramachandran, on the other hand, argued that the issue of additional fee for WLL players have already been settled. “We talked of the licence fee as a charge for some privilege. Now that privilege has been taken away (by allowing basic operators to offer the limited mobility services)”, Mr Ramachandran said. Mr Khanna said imposing an additional licence fee on basic operators will deter the growth of tele-density in the country. Nine million mobile subscribers were added in the first five months of this fiscal, which is expected to reach 20 million by the end of 2003-04. ‘’There should not be any attempt to stop this growth”, he said. TRAI Chairman P. Baijal sought to allay fears of consumer groups that imposition of the additional licence fee would result in price rise. “Entry fee is paid by operators and tariffs are decided in the market”, Mr Baijal said. “TRAI had earlier did not impose any additional entry fee on basic operators for limited mobility services, but the TDSAT asked us to review our decision”, he said.
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India to prepay $2.9 b costly loans
New Delhi, September 17 “We are planning to prepay $ 1.4 billion multilateral loans and another $ 1.5 billion bilateral loans this fiscal,” Budget Secretary D Swarup said at the weekly review meeting here. He said the government was talking to multilateral agencies like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to identify the high-cost for early repayment. “If we identify high-cost debt worth over $ 1.4 billion multilateral loans, we may repay more this fiscal,” he said, adding that the total prepayment will be more than $ 2.9 billion. The government will raise resources from the domestic market to prepay the foreign loans, Swarup said, adding that there will not be any impact on the Centre’s financial position. Last fiscal, the government prepaid high-cost loans worth about $ 3 billion taken from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The Centre is also planning to swap high-cost debts of states worth Rs 18,000 crore this fiscal. Swarup said the total debt swap will be Rs 32,000 crore, of which Rs 18,000 crore will be for state loans and another Rs 14,000 crore for small savings. Small savings collection surged by 27 per cent to Rs 43,666 crore till August this fiscal compared to Rs 34,462 crore during the first five months last fiscal. After payment of matured schemes, the net amount comes to about Rs 19,609 crore during April-August this fiscal compared to Rs 16,730 crore in the year ago period. The Finance Ministry officials did not rule out another round of buyback in the later part of this fiscal but said there were no such plans as of now.
— PTI
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Divert to cash crops, says Chautala
Chandigarh, September 17 Speaking after inaugurating "Kapas Mela" at the Cotton Research Station of Haryana Agricultural University at Sirsa, he also urged the farmers to use organic manure. Chautala also called upon the agriculture scientists to develop disease-resistant varieties of crops to make farming more remunerative. The problem of pests on crop had taken a serious turn with many turning resistant against insecticides. Earlier, Vice-Chancellor of the Haryana Agricultural University M K Miglani said the university had a plan to make Sirsa district as a cotton-seed district.
— PTI
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Chamber urges HP to employ outsiders Shimla, September 17 Addressing a press conference here today he said, skilled and efficient manpower was essential to make the industry competitive in an era of globalisation and there could be no compromise on this front. An industrial unit would be keen to provide as much employment to the local people as possible. However, it had to employ outsiders, if skilled persons were not available within the state. He called for a review of the Information Technology Policy announced in 2001 to ensure expeditious implementation of projects. The private sector was required to be encouraged to develop technology parks that were equipped with quality infrastructure. The companies which wished to start units in the proposed parks should be allowed to build their own facilities. Regarding the promotion of tourism, he said, at least two or three new tourism destinations should be developed to ease congestion in the existing ones, besides facilities should be upgraded in the already popular resorts. To begin with a new hill station should be created with the active participation of the private sector developers. The construction activity in the hills should be entirely environment-friendly. A master plan should be prepared to create a niche in health, rural and leisure tourism for the domestic travellers for which there was a vast scope. To facilitate growth of the food processing industry, the government should set up food parks with integrated facilities.
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Unichem to set up unit in Brazil
Mumbai, September 17 The company was entering the regulated and semi-regulated markets and the focus was on the CIS, Saarc, South East Asia, Middle East, South Africa and Eastern Europe areas and expects to formulate a strategy for Central America, in firm said in its annual report for 2002-03. Unichem was currently exporting its products to 20 countries and has obtained over 250 registrations.
— PTI
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