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Government to
sell residual stake of privatised firms Floor area ratio
irks investors Citigroup eyes 25
pc share in Indian market
FDI in India may
drop: AT Kearney China offers
manufacturing base to India |
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Sebi warns FIIs
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Wipro Info to sign major
project
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Government to sell residual stake of privatised firms New Delhi, November 25 “The sale of governments remaining stake in companies (which have already been privatised) will go on. We will, however, wait for the Supreme Court’s final verdict before starting disinvestment of more companies”, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie told newspersons here. The companies which had already been privatised and government might offload residual stake are Balco, CMC, IBP, VSNL, IPCL and Maruti. The government is focussing only on the legal option to reinitiate the disinvestment process, he said, adding that: “On the Centre's petition, the Supreme Court has transferred all cases filed in various courts against disinvestment to it. The final verdict will clear the air regarding the whole disinvestment process. I do not want to prejudge the Supreme Court decision and will rather wait for it to start the disinvestment process”. On the business process outsourcing (BPO) and its fallout in the new the multi-lateral trading regime under the aegis of the WTO, Mr Shourie said “the relationships entered by India with Brazil, Mexico and other developing countries at Cancun should be used to tell the developed world that we cannot go on liberalising trade on goods, while you keep on erecting walls against services.’’ Anticipating that states going for anti-BPO legislation in the United States would go up due to state and Presidential Elections, Mr Shourie said let the companies using India’s software expertise lobby against these legislation. On the possibility of software exports to China, Mr Shourie said contacts with western companies which had operations in the communist nation should be tapped for the purpose. ''Chinese companies are too domestic-oriented and there is not much scope of tie-ups with them”.
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Floor area ratio irks investors Solan, November 24 With the Town and Country Planning Department posing restrictions in the form of shrinking the floor area ratio (FAR) to a mere 30 per cent for plots measuring more than 5,000 metres and about 60 per cent for plots less than 5,000 metres, the investors opine that while they pay in lakhs for the huge plots they are able to utilize only a small part of it. Officials in the department support this policy on the plea that the remaining area is supposed to be used for parking and developing green zones to compensate for the pollution emanating from the units. The officials, however, said it was a uniform Central Government restriction on the industrial units and they could not be dealt with a par with residential plots. The single window clearance system launched by the government was also far from reality, said the investors who choose to remain anonymous. They contended that with the Himachal Pradesh Financial Corporation office being located at Jharmajri, far away from Baddi where all other offices were located, it posed inconvenience for the investors. Obtaining clearance of Section 118 for outsiders investing in the state is another hurdle as it often took months together. With a great demand for industrial plot in Baddi, Barotiwala and Nalagarh, the land rates have soared in the past few months. While they stood at a mere Rs 30,000 to 40,000 per bigha before the policy announcement the prices had now reached a high of Rs 4-8 lakh. Not only are the local property dealers fleecing the investors by selling land at the inflated rates, but also they felt the government should acquire more land for the purpose. The high cost of investment on land was acting as a deterrent for many investors. |
Citigroup eyes 25 pc share in Indian market
New York, November 25 “India is important for us and its growth is amazing. Our aim is to capture 25 per cent of the Indian banking market over an extended period of time,’’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Global Corporate and Investment Banking Group Charles Prince said at a conference here. He said private and foreign banking has been a recent phenomenon in India, where state-owned banks still dominate the sector in which Citibank is keen on expanding its presence and capture more market share. Citibank has identified five or six countries for their economic potential and India is among them, he said. The theme of the conference, organised by The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE), was business process outsourcing. Mr Prince said: “Some of the buzz about outsourcing can be described as hype. Our group, a captive player of outsourcing in India, reposes trust in the country’s economy.’’ However, he warned that India’s economic growth could be hampered if markets were not opened up, social unrest worsened and there was no measure to ensure transparency. India’s economic growth was expected to be 7 per cent this fiscal after hovering between 4.5 and 6 per cent over the past few years and it was a good sign, he added. Citibank, a 200-year-old financial institution, has presence in more than 100 countries. In India, where it has been for about 100 years, the bank has 25 branches in 18 cities. Major brand names under Citigroup’s trademark red umbrella include Citi Cards, CitiFinancial, CitiMortgage, CitiInsurance, Primerica, Diners Club, Citigroup Asset Management, The Citigroup Private Bank and CitiCapital. Mr Prince said the People of Indian Origin and NRIs had played a major role in the country’s progress. “NRIs are an extraordinary demographic feature,’’ he said, referring to the 20 million overseas
Indians. — UNI |
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FDI in India may drop: AT Kearney
New Delhi, November 25 A.T. Kearney Inc Managing Director (US) Paul A Laudicina told UNI that many factors, including domestic, would be responsible for the decline from last year’s 3.4 billion dollars. “Globally, too, FDI flows are expected to be flat at the last fiscal’s $ 651 billion level mainly because of excessive caution on the part of investors. “After the September 11 attacks in the USA, nearly one third of global investors view security concerns and terrorism among the most critical risks to their firms as well as operations,’’ Mr Laudicina said. To drive his point, he pointed out to the inflows this year. “In the first quarter of this fiscal, only $ 350 million came in as FDI against $ 1.65 billion in the same period last year. “Though FDI picked up in July and touched 180 million dollars as compared to $ 150 million in July, ‘02, but overall I think the bad start is going to weigh heavily on the total inflows in FY 04,’’ he said. In its FDI Confidence Index for 2003, A T Kearney had raised India’s position by nine points to number six. “However, this elevation does not mean that inflows will be increasing immediately as the corporates we surveyed, said they would making these investments over the next three years. “The slowdown we are witnessing now are also because of decisions on investment taken about two years back when India was low down the priority list of foreign investors,’’ Mr Laudicina said. On the domestic front, he listed difficult bureaucracy and slowdown of reforms among the top two problems impeding FDI growth. “Also, poor infrastructure was one of the reasons listed by corporates for shying away from making investments in India,’’ he said.
— UNI |
| China offers manufacturing base to India
New Delhi, November 25 “China would have ascended the value chain from blue collar manufacturing to white collar manufacturing. In this situation, India and China would compete with each other. “However, there can be a scenario for collaboration in the arena of blue collar manufacturing, an area of strength for China and a sector that India missed when it moved from agriculture to services,’’ Mr Zhu Min, General Manager and Economic Adviser to the President, Bank of China told a session at the India Economic Summit here. Given India’s renewed focus on labour-intensive manufacturing, Mr Min identified several opportunities for co-operation between the two countries, chief among these being the utilisation of China as a manufacturing base for domestic and international markets. Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said the country needed greater preparedness to tackle China as a
competitor in the textiles sector when the Multi- Fibre Agreement (MFA) will be
dismantled from January 1, 2005. There was a general consensus at the
session that India and China must not be content with the tags of global leaders, but must look at increasing their competitiveness and contribution to the global growth by becoming the engines that will drive the world economy. The session on “India-China: Creating a Model for Partnership” was a attended by several experts. The summit has been jointly organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
— UNI |
Sebi warns FIIs on investments Mumbai, November 25 Asked about the adjudication action initiated against Citigroup, SEBI Chairman G N Bajpai told reporters “all FIIs must disclose details on PN investments on fortnightly basis”. “If any entity (FII) does not provide information within the specified timeframe, it would be subject to regulatory process including adjudication,” he added. He, however, refused to elaborate on the action against any specific FII. The market regulator has started legal action against Citigroup for failing to disclose details of PN up to July, 2003, to monitor funds coming through the FII route into the country, SEBI sources said. Citigroup had issued participatory notes to CSFB against Indian securities whose details also had been sought, they said. According to SEBI’s analysis of FII investments, 26 per cent of foreign investments has come through issuance of PNs.
— PTI |
Uco Bank cuts rates on deposits Tractor loan Flexibonds 19 HDFC Life income UTI MF plan SBI group cover Unique scheme Markets closed Airtel SMS |
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