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Archies to
focus on retail distribution Flour
millers see bright future ahead Upward
trend in tourism Handicrafts
exports up 20 per cent |
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Incentive
from employer taxable
No early revival of stock
market in sight
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Archies to focus on retail distribution New Delhi, March 21 “Over the next 24 months, we plan to consolidate our retail chain by opening another 50 company-owned stores. The planned stores would be larger in format and stocking levels and wider in range. Any franchisee growth would be in addition to these 50 stores,” the Chairman and Managing Director of the company, Mr Anil Moolchandani, told The Tribune in an interview. “It (the retail focus) is also with a view to giving the consumer a consistent feeling across the country. That is the reason why the company is focussing on its retail operations and opening more company owned/ managed stores where the problem of piracy and copying does not arise”, Mr Moolchandani said. Presently, the company has 475 stores as part of the exclusive Archies Gallery chain. In addition, Archies products are available in over 2,000 retail outlets spread across 120 cities in five countries other than India. “We have presence in five countries — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, UAE, Bahrain — through franchisees.
Moreover, our cards are sold wherever there is a sizeable Indian population, where occasions such as Rakhi, Holi and
Divali etc are popular”, he said. Mr Moolchandani, however, did acknowledge that the greetings card industry had felt a short-term impact with the advent of the Internet and short messaging services (SMS). “There has been a short term effect of technology on the concept of sending greeting cards. There has been SMS and eCards, which have tended to eat into the greetings card market. This kind of transition is a time for regrouping, gaining a better perspective by moving back half a step and then moving forward again, in a much more focussed manner”, he said. He said complete distribution chain of the company has been revamped. “Weak links are being weeded out, while adding fresh distribution channels”, he added. “Over the next few years, we should be part of any possible occasion that is being celebrated in any house in the country. Archies aims to be a one-stop option for greeting and gifting”, Mr Moolchandani said. The greetings card market in India is estimated to be around Rs 300 crore at retail value. Of this, the organised sector accounts for approximately Rs 150 crore. Mr Moolchandani said the main competition to Archies came from the unorganised players and issues of piracy and copying were also rampant in the industry. “Where piracy and copying are concerned there is a problem at the lowest end of the spectrum — the unorganised sector. The real core target audience is not buying greeting cards and gifts from the pavements. There are no situations where people are passing off non-Archies greetings cards as Archies greeting cards”, he said. He said in comparison to the West, India was still a growing market with a “tremendous potential”. “So far as the greetings card usage is concerned, the US market has a per capita consumption of 40, while the UK has a per capita consumption of 50. India, even after accounting for the fact that only 25 per cent of the population would be potential buyers, the per capita consumption of greetings card usage is a meagre 0.5”, the Archies CMD said. Archies, which was set up in 1979, has tie-ups and licensing agreements for merchandising of popular comic characters for greeting card designs. This includes characters such as Denis the Menace and Walt & Disney characters. The company has also entered into tie-ups with Helpage India and Cry and also has licensing agreements with Paramount Cards Inc, USA, Portal Publications Inc and other international greetings card brands.
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Flour millers see bright future ahead Ludhiana, March 21 Mr Gopal Bhushan Gupta, President of the federation, talking to The Tribune said that there was a great demand of wheat and wheat products in Pakistan. All these years, Pakistan used to import wheat from Ukraine and some other countries. One of the major exporters of wheat in the world, five million tonne of wheat was exported every year worldwide by Ukraine alone. But wheat scarcity in the world had increased in the last one year as the wheat crop in Ukraine had failed and the country, itself had to import four million tonne of wheat. According to the federation members, about half a million tonne of wheat and wheat products are required in Pakistan every year. The country was getting wheat from neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Burma, Bangladesh etc. Wheat came to Pakistan through Australia and USA but at a much higher cost. Mr Gupta said, “With the improvement in relationships in both the countries, we are hopeful to start export of wheat to Pakistan. This step would definitely boost the flour Industry of India”. It may be mentioned here that a 12-15 member delegation of the flour millers would be visiting their Pakistani counterparts in the third week of April this year. They are expecting to meet Pakistan’s Food Minister, Sardar
Y. M. Rind, Secretary for Food, Mr S. N. Ahmed and Secretary Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Mirza Farman Baig. In India, there are about 950 flour mills with 58 in the state of Punjab. Out of these 58, 28-30 are working and the remaining have been closed down due to various reasons. “If the wheat export to Pakistan commences, all the closed mills will immediately start working, giving a sigh of relief to the millers”, maintained Mr Gupta. The President had also met the Punjab Chief Minister,
Capt Amarinder Singh recently to discuss everything in detail and CM had assured all kind of cooperation to the flour millers. Mr Gupta said that India was lucky enough to produce wheat quite comfortably because of good monsoons, weather etc and 5-7 million tonnes of wheat could easily be exported. However, the rates for export would be decided as per the international market. But in Pakistan, Punjab and Karachi remained the main wheat producing areas. India was already exporting wheat to countries like China, Sri Lanka, Dubai, South Africa, Indonesia, Nigeria etc and Indian wheat reached Pakistan (at present) through the Dubai route but it was much costlier due to added freight charges. Mr Gupta claimed that on March 18, wheat samples were sent to Pakistan for approval as the authorities there suspected that the Indian wheat might have been damaged due to ‘Karnal bunt’ disease. “But the quality of Indian wheat having been proved up to the mark, we are hopeful to get positive response from their side”, said Mr Gupta.
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Upward trend in tourism Bathinda, March 21 Operating with 12 offices in India, the company, which has appointed 112 local Preferred Sales Agent (PSA) in different cities, has been moving fast to cover the entire nation within a year or so. Mr Vikas Khanduri, Regional Manager, Cox and Kings, talking exclusively to TNS pointed out that as the company was expecting that it would witness a jump of 100 per cent in the numbers of inbound and outbound tourists in India in the current year, it had started reaching out the customers including corporate houses and other sections of prospective clients at their door steps. He pointed out that in the year 2003, the company took about 22,000 Indians to foreign locations by providing them different sets of packaged tours and brought about 45,000 foreigners to India from nook and corner of the world. He added that in the current year these figures were expected to become double as the fear of SARS among the clients was over now. The main reason for unexpected jump in the number of tourists coming to India was the fact that due to expansion in road network, strengthening of national highways, and increase in the number of modes of all sorts of transportation, the tourists had now been finding it easy to visit the places of their likings.
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Handicrafts exports up 20 per cent New Delhi, March 21 According to Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), with Indian handicraft exporters venturing into new markets, along with traditional ones like Latin America, Central Asia and African countries has helped rise in exports of handicrafts from the country. Said Mr Rakesh Kumar, Director, EPCH, during this year the exports of art metalware, woodware, hand printed textiles and scarves, embroidered goods, shawls as artware, zari and zari goods, immitation jewellery have shown an increasing trend. Consequently, he said, “There is possibility of overshooting the export target, Rs 8400
crore, for the year 2003-04 for handicraft items, excluding hand-knotted carpet.”
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IT fair in China
New Delhi, March 21 |
No early revival of stock market in sight
The
stock market is passing through a bad time. On March 1, the Sensex closed at 5823.17 points after an upsurge in the market. Last Friday, it closed at 5443.44 points. In other words, the market is down by about 380 points registering a fall of 6.25 per cent. Throughout the fortnight the market trading has been marked by low volumes, declining indices and a high degree of volatility. Even last Friday, intraday volatility was as high as 110 points between the day’s high and low. Though there was some recovery during the close of trading last week, many analysts are of the opinion that the market might move down again this week. CLSA, in its report, expects the Sensex to fall between 6 to 10 per cent and move down to 5000 points before distinct revival. Quite a number of IPOs, recently floated, are now quoting at much below their offered price. IBP and Patni Computers are now quoting around Rs 596 and Rs 206 respectively. The retail investors who got allotment in these scrips have been sellers in the market to adjust their borrowed funds. Patni has suffered due to the reports that its clientage is highly restricted and the two major clients provide almost 50 per cent of its business from the USA. The reports from USA on opposition to outsourcing have also affected the market sentiments. Gallup Pole has indicated overwhelming public opinion against it and the Democratic Party is bent on making it a major issue in the Presidential elections. Another factor making for fall in the stock market is sales by mutual funds all over in order to meet redemption demands. As the financial year closes on March 31, it is uncertain whether the equity-based mutual funds will enjoy tax exemptions; a lot will depend upon the new government and its stand on the issue. In case BJP led NDA Government returns to power, tax exemptions on dividends and equity-based schemes of mutual funds are likely to be renewed. The economy, however, is doing well and there is almost complete unanimity on the issue of its better performance during the financial year 2004 and later. The advance tax payment by the corporate sector for the quarter ending March 15, 2004 indicates a healthy growth in its contribution; it is almost double of what it was during the last financial year. Whatever the technical analysts may say about further decline, the market may move within a narrow range during this fortnight. There is no positive news, and the corporate results would start flowing in only by April 10. But during this period, the public interest will shift from stock market to general elections to the Lok Sabha. The clearer picture will, however, emerge by mid-May when the election results would be available. During the week the Bank of Maharashtra IPO allotment is likely to be completed. It is expected that it would be as liberal for the retail investors as was that of IPCL issue. During the fortnight Glaxo completed its merger with Burrough Welcome - a merger which had been done elsewhere but was pending in India. The ratio in merge is 7 shares of Glaxo for every 5 shares of Burrough Welcome. Bayer India has incorporated Bayer Crop Science India Ltd. in itself. Bayer India has now been renamed as Bayer Crop Science Ltd. The shares to watch during this fortnight are: Tata Tele Services (which has entered into an important collaboration with a top American company) and Pfizer (around Rs 430-432).
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Inflation falls Pharma R&D fund Amrit Foods Hughes Software Data Access J&K Bank SBP ATM Cisco Systems |
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New Delhi, March 21
