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Shourie blames advisers for pulling down IPO prices New Delhi, February 25 Concerned over the lukewarm response to a slew of government IPOs, Disinvestment and Telecommunication Minister Arun Shourie said today the government has identified the people pulling down the market and the global advisers would have the direct responsibility to hardsell the public issues. MFN status for
India soon, says Pak envoy The Pakistan Government may soon grant most favoured nation’s (MFN) status to India to promote trade between both the countries. The Pakistan leadership is sincere to resolve all issues with India through dialogue and negotiations, said Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Aziz Khan here today. Govt may accept
TRAI proposals on CAS India to tap $ 3
trillion global healthcare industry India is poised to tap $ 3 trillion global healthcare industry as the country has set up world-class health care facilities during the past few years. In comparison to the Western countries, the cost of medical facilities in India is one/tenth on an average, said Mr Vinod Khanna, Union Minister of State for External Affairs, while inaugurating a two-day conference on “Healthcare - destination India” here today. Norms on FDI in
private banks soon The government will soon come up with detailed guidelines for private banks, including hike in the foreign holding from 49 to 74 per cent and allowing foreign banks to set up subsidiaries in the country. |
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HSIDC launches 3
projects Telecom companies
told to submit separate accounts Trai has made it mandatory for telecom service providers to submit accounting statements separately for every service and product for each of the licensed areas. New Delhi, February 25 The government today fixed the floor price of Rs 185 a share for selling 10 per cent stake in Gail (India) Ltd through book building route, bids for which open on February 27. Khanna, February 25 Markfed will export 40,000 tonnes of potatoes to European countries in the next year. Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has taken the issue with the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister to get clearance, Managing Director of the Markfed S. S. Channi said, while addressing the mediapersons here today. Sharjah zone
offer sops to investors The Hamriyah Free Zone (HFZ, Sharjah) has assured sops to industrialists if they are keen in investing in the HFZ. New Delhi, February 25 Power Trading Corporation of India (PTC), which goes public on March 1, will come out with details of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) tomorrow.
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Shourie blames advisers for pulling down IPO prices
New Delhi, February 25 Talking to reporters after meeting with Chairman of Sebi G N Bajpayee and financial advisers for the IPOs, Mr Shourie said he would soon meet Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and apprise them of the state of things in the stock market and progress of the public offerings. “Sebi has also informed us about pulling down of prices by certain players,” Mr Shourie said. In order to raise Rs 15,000 crore through the sale of IPOs, the government is selling its residual stake in CMC, IBP and IPCL. The Dredging Corporation of India IPO opens tomorrow, while Gas Authority of India Ltd and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation would be launched early next month for offloading the minority stake of the government. In the midst of continuous decline in the Sensex, the initial public offerings by the PSUs, especially IBP, have not evoked enthusiastic response from investors. Elaborating, Mr Shourie said the market was being hammered based on the assessment of the last trading prices of the PSU shares which was a “misnomer”. The floor price of the IPOs on offer has been determined in a professional way by merchant bankers taking into account various parameters. Expressing disappointment with merchant bankers over their inability to hardsell the government IPOs, Mr Shourie had a dig at them. “Their function does not end with giving us a price band. They must also go and inform the correct position to the public.” However, Mr Shourie was hopeful all six IPOs would sail through since the market has built enough depth over the last few months in the wake of the sound economic fundamentals. After offering between 10-12 per cent discount to market rates for three issues, the government yesterday changed tactics and announced an aggressive rebate of over 26 per cent for selling 20 per cent equity in Dredging Corporation of India. Market analysts want GAIL and the ONGC also to be priced in a
competitive way, given oversupply of public issues and continuous
decline of prices in the secondary market. — TNS, UNI
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MFN status for India soon, says Pak envoy New Delhi, February 25 Addressing
a visiting Pakistani business delegation from the Karachi Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (KCCI) at the invitation of Assocham, he said,”The
current thaw in the ties between both the countries have presented a
lifetime opportunity to resolve all outstanding issues. Further, the
business community and public of the both the countries are forcing the
political leadership to resolve all controversial issues.” Allaying the
apprehensions about the sincerity of political dialogue between the two
countries, Mr Khan observed,”The dialogue between the two countries is
quite sincere this time as the political and economic circumstances in
both the countries have changed during the recent past months. I am sure
that with these recent peace initiatives and the dialogue process,
economic relations will also move forward,” he said. According to
Assocham, official bilateral trade between India and Pakistan stands at
just $ 250 million. But substantial trade between the two countries was
currently going on via Dubai and other channels. On SAFTA, he said
details would be formalised during the Commerce Secretary level talks
that would be held around June this year. Referring to the demand of
Indian industrialists to relax visa restrictions for at least business
delegates, Mr Khan opined that with the normalisation of relations
between the two countries, more visas would be issued for business,
tourism and other purposes. He admitted that due to trade barriers
between the two countries, the volume of trade did not reflect the
economic potential of the two countries. The opening of trade would open
new opportunities for trade and joint ventures in the field of cotton,
engineering, automobile, oil refinery and machine tools. Speaking on
this occasion, Mr M.K. Sanghi, President, Assocham, said the creation of
a SAFTA by 2006 would boost trade relations between India and Pakistan. |
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Govt may accept TRAI proposals on CAS New Delhi, February 25 TRAI had
suggested that till it worked out modalities of smooth CAS
implementation, the system should be kept in abeyance, at least for
three months while maintaining that this suggestion did not in any way
contravene the High Court order on the issue. “We consulted the Law
Ministry today on whether TRAI’s suggestion was contravening the High
Court order in December asking the government to implement CAS and it
opined that the present directive does not overrule HC. Now, the
government will issue a notification holding CAS in abeyance,” official
sources told PTI here. While asking the government to keep this system
in abeyance, TRAI Chairman Pradip Baijal had said earlier this week: “I
believe keeping CAS in abeyance till the consultation process is
completed is possible within the High Court order. We are not
contravening it in any way”. He said he had also consulted the Attorney
General on legal issues involved before suggesting that CAS be
deferred. Mr Baijal said the decision to defer CAS was taken by TRAI
after detailed study of the regulatory systems prevalent in at least 20
other countries and that the deferment would bring consumers in all four
metros of Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai at par with each other.
— PTI |
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India to tap $ 3 trillion global healthcare industry New Delhi, February 25 The conference is being
organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Welcoming the
delegates from Pakistan, Mr Khanna said, “The Indian government will
encourage initiatives to work on a reciprocal basis and exchange of
doctors and coordinate research programmes concerning health.”
Speaking on this occasion, Dr Farzana Nazir, Parliamentary Secretary,
Health from Punjab in Pakistan, felt that both countries could work in
cooperation for optimum utilisation of their respective strengths. Dr
Farzana is leading a team of 12 medical professionals from Pakistan to
participate in the conference, which features a special plenary session
on India-Pakistan — Opportunities in healthcare. In his keynote
address, Dr Naresh Trehan, Executive Director, Escorts Heart Institute
and Research Centre, observed that the healthcare industry was growing
at a robust pace. The country was spending 5.2 per cent of its GDP on
healthcare which was comparable with most other developing countries.
With the healthcare industry in India expected to grow to Rs 270,000
crore by 2012 from Rs 86,000 crore in 2001, he said, both the government
and the industry needed to take actions that would increase investment
and employment in healthcare and make high quality healthcare more
affordable and available to all. This would improve the quality of life
of our people, leading to greater socio-economic progress of the country,
he said. The healthcare industry employed over four million people
which made it one of the largest service sectors in the economy of our
country. As medical costs sky rocketed in the developed world, countries
like India had immense potential for what was called “medical tourism”,
highlighted Mr Harpal Singh, conference chairman, in his theme address. |
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Norms on FDI in private banks soon
New Delhi, February 25 “We have given the papers to Department of Industrial
Policy and Promotion. It (notification) may come tomorrow,” Secretary
for financial sector, N S Sisodia, said today. The guidelines were
being awaited by a host of private banks like Centurion Bank, Global
Trust Bank, IDBI Bank, who wanted to increase their capital base and
carry out expansions. Foreign banks like HSBC, ABN AMRO Bank, Standard
Chartered Bank and Nova Scotia were also eyeing subsidiaries in India
following the relaxation of the FDI norms. Although the Cabinet had
approved the proposal for hiking FDI ceiling in private banks on January
15, the Finance Ministry and Reserve Bank were fine-tuning the
guidelines. The FDI hike in banking sector was first suggested by the N
K Singh panel but the Finance Ministry and RBI had added a slew of
stringent conditionalities to prevent ownership of banks going into
wrong hands. Sources in the ministry said the guidelines would allow
FDI ceiling to go up to 74 per cent from the present 49 per cent but the
investors mandatorily needed to get a credit rating and RBI’s nod. The
overall 74 per cent foreign holding would include foreign direct
investment (FDI), foreign institutional investments (FII), NRIs, initial
public offers, private placements and ADRs/GDRs. The FDI ceiling would
not be applicable for PSU banks while limit remains at 26 per cent for
insurance companies. — PTI |
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Chandigarh, February 25 While stating this here today, a spokesman of HSIDC said
that the projects included an auditorium and a gems and jewellery park
at Udyog Vihar and a hospital at Industrial Model Township, Manesar.
The Rs 50-crore gems and jewellery park, he said, had been planned to
meet the rising export needs of the gems and jewellery from India. He
emphasised that the gems and jewellery made by the traditional Indian
artisans had a great demand in the international market. He said the
hospital at IMT Maneswar would be operational by October 2005 and the
cost of the project was Rs 25.24 crore. He said that the auditorium,
which had been constructed at a cost of Rs 60 lakh, was a part of the
existing building of the HSIDC at Gurgaon and had been set up to provide
an appropriate venue for presentations and discussions of the
industrialists. — UNI |
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Telecom companies told to submit separate accounts New Delhi, February 25 Under the new
norms, the telecom service providers have to file separate account for
basic telephone service, national long distance service, international
long distance service, cellular mobile telephone service, Internet, VSAT,
paging, public mobile radio trunk service and GMPCS. The accounting
separation reports will help TRAI to monitor and measure financial
performance of individual products, network services and information
about disaggregated costs to the level of network elements. “It will
also help in identification of cross-subsidisation practices in the
industry, where these exist and investigate the cases of predatory
pricing, and anti-competitive conducts”, a Trai statement said. The
reporting system will help generate accurate information on costs, which
is necessary to decide interconnection usage charge and access deficit
charge. |
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Gail price set at Rs 185
New Delhi, February 25 The floor
price has been set 5.1 per cent lower than the last traded price of the
Gail share on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). On the BSE, price of
Gail share fell 5.14 per cent today to close at Rs 195. The government
proposes to sell 8,45,65,160 shares of Gail in the market. The last
date for accepting the bids has been fixed as March 5. When asked
about the sharp decline in prices of Gail on the stock markets,
Disinvestment Secretary Dhirender Singh that prices would stabilise.
— UNI
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Markfed potatoes for Europe Khanna, February 25 Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has taken the issue
with the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister to get clearance,
Managing Director of the Markfed S. S. Channi said, while addressing the
mediapersons here today. Highlighting the achievements of Markfed, he
said next year it will earn a profit of minimum Rs 15 crore. The losses
have been suffered by Markfed because it has to compete with sales tax
exempted units. Meanwhile, the Markfed Vanaspati plant today obtained
the certification under ISO-9001:2000 and Global HACCP, which confirms
the standards and the quality systems followed by the plant. These
certificates give a great confidence to the consumers regarding safety
standards followed at the plant. This was disclosed by Mr Harminder
Singh Jassi, Chairman, Markfed. — PTI, TNS |
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Sharjah zone offer sops to investors Chandigarh, February 25 Speaking at a meeting of
HFZ, Sharjah, organised by the PHDCCI yesterday, Ms Leela Karunaratne,
senior sales officer of the HFZ, said it was the world’s first free
zone to obtain the ISO-14001 certification. The HFZ has recently
bagged the Century Quality Era Award for customer satisfaction,
leadership, strategic planning and benchmarking. Ms Karunaratne said
the zone was the ideal warehousing/distribution and industrial hub. Mohd
Basheer, sales officer, HFZ, apprised the participants about the
stable and buoyant economy and services. — TNS |
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New Delhi, February 25 The corporation will hit the capital market with IPO for 5.85 crore shares at Rs 10 each and would be open for subscription from March 1 and close on March 8, PTC CMD T N Thakur said. PTC would offer
5,84,99,990 crore shares to the public, while 50 per cent of them
would be allotted to qualified institutional buyers, 25 per cent to
retail investors and the balance to high net worth individuals. —
UNI
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Kinetic bike
Sugarfed
UTI
fund to pay
Trust Insurance |
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