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OPEC producers split on oil cut policy
Developing nations have a key role in reviving WTO talks, say experts
Poll campaign boosts music industry
India to become world’s third biggest economy, says Lord Paul
Panipat resident gets Honda City from Reliance Infocomm
Bus, truck sales soar 35.7 pc
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IT Dept collects 16.87 cr
New pension scheme to be delayed
India top recipient of Japan’s loan
Apex bank MD suspended
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OPEC producers split on oil cut policy
Vienna, March 30 The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, meeting on Wednesday, is under pressure to postpone a scheduled supply cut that sent US oil prices this month to a 13-year high. Some in OPEC favour deferring a February deal, agreed in Algiers, to cut crude supplies by 4 per cent from April. “The Algeria agreement can be reviewed, it is not compulsory,” said UAE oil minister Obaid al-Nasseri. “There are different opinions that will be discussed including postponing implementing the Algeria agreement.’’ Influential Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he could not predict the meeting’s outcome. But he said world crude supplies were sufficient and that, in any case, OPEC had already moved to implement the April curbs. “There is plenty of oil out there,’’ Naimi said. While most oil company estimates are that producers so far have followed through with only a fraction of the April cuts, Naimi’s remarks appear to indicate that he thinks it is too late to postpone the reduction. “It’s already been implemented, (export) nominations already came out in March,’’ he said. OPEC blames record oil futures purchases by speculative US investment funds for inflaming prices and worries they could soon exit the market, sparking a price slump. “Do you think we determine the price? Speculators will do whatever speculators do to make money,’’ said Naimi. The producers’ February decision to slice output quotas by one million barrels a day from April 1 sent US crude racing above $38 a barrel, the highest closing price since the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis.
US petro-diplomacy
OPEC’s biggest customer the United States fears the cartel’s impressive record of market management is posing a growing threat to economic recovery. US gasoline retailing at $1.77 a gallon is a political burden to the Bush administration in an election year, though only a third of the average cost at the pump across the European Union. Washington last week ditched its softly-softly approach to OPEC, announcing publicly that it was trying to convince the cartel to ease open the taps. US investment bank Goldman Sachs released a report estimating the oil price surge may subtract 0.3 per cent this year from the gross domestic product of the world’s seven biggest economies. “The impact of higher oil prices may have been masked so far by the boost to real incomes from US tax cuts — but as these fade in the second half, the impact of continued high prices is likely to come to the fore,’’ the report said. —
Reuters
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Developing nations have a key role in reviving WTO talks, say experts
New Delhi, March 30 Participating at a one-day Workshop on “The New Global Trade Paradigm which was jointly organised by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the London School of Economics, experts said that it was lack of realims and political will that held back progress at Cancun. A Commerce Ministry statement said the participants felt that it was unlikely there would be any movement in the WTO till mid-2005 as several players, both developed and developing, were going through their rounds of national electoral processes. Participants pointed out that apart from political will on the part of developed countries to resolve issues such as Agriculture and Singapore issues, it would also be necessary for developing countries to be a little more flexible on the issue of concessions. Participants opined that China, inter alia, developing countries had displayed a constructive approach to the world trade community, not only through its reasonable terms of accession to the WTO but also through its substantial unilateral liberalisation exercises. China’s positive role was also evidenced in terms of its enthusiasm to engage in issue based alliances with other member countries, the statement said. It was pointed out that in the history of the world, voluntary migration of workers had seldom created social problems. Further a distinction needed to be made between workers seeking migration and workers on temporary service provider visas, the latter being the sole concern of negotiations at the multilateral trading system. The functioning of the WTO also came for discussion. It was noted that the WTO was not displaying the technocratic efficiency that was seen in latter part of GATT proceedings. Part of the reason was the proliferation of membership that made consensus more difficult. It was felt that it was perhaps time that new practical options were considered to make negotiations more effective, this could include options in which groupings of countries conducted negotiations, the Commerce Ministry said.
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Poll campaign boosts music industry
New Delhi, March 30 Industry insiders acknowledge that the high-pitch “electronic warfare” launched by major political parties have helped them post fresh earnings ahead of the fiscal closing. Though no recorded sales order figures are available, but as per industry estimates, the music industry has already got orders worth Rs 50-100 crore for the election campaign. It includes party and candidates expenses as well across the country. Mr Pradeep Gangal, Head Marketing, Super Cassettes Industries, said: “The music industry has benefitted substantially from the election campaign though the political parties are emphasising on the use of TV channels and radio as a medium of communication.” As per the Indian Music Industry Association, the annual sales volumes in the music industry has come down from about Rs 1000 crore in 90s to Rs 500 crore in 2002-03. The industry is expecting to attain a growth rate of 4 per cent per annum this year. Besides T-Series, Saregama, Sony, Tips, Universal Music, Virgin and Venus are the major players in this sector. The insiders say the political parties in the Northern states, including Punjab and Haryana, have given bulk orders for blank casettes only. But the recording of messages of their leaders, folk songs, satirical pieces is being done in towns like Ludhiana, Chandigarh and even in Shimla. Asserting that the BJP has been the first party to take advantage of cheaper and effective technology to reach out to the masses, BJP’s National Media Convenor Amitabh Sinha acknowledges that the use of CDs and cassettes in election campaigning has grown over the years.
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India to become world’s third biggest economy, says Lord Paul
London, March 30 Addressing a distinguished gathering at the Executive Development Centre for UBS AG in Wolfsberg, Switzerland last night, Lord Paul referred to the rapid strides made by China and India and said “the long-term prospects for India, while from a lower starting point, are, if anything better. Its fifty-year growth rate is put at just above five per cent.” Speaking on ‘Manufacturing and Globalisation’ Lord Paul who is the co-chairman of the India-UK round table, said “India will not overtake the United States over this period but will become a bigger economy than Japan and thus the third biggest behind China and the United States, in the space of thirty years.” However, “this does not necessarily indicate that these countries with their massive populations will become richer than the West,” he cautioned. Even by 2050, “China’s GDP per head will still be half that of Britain, and less than 40 per cent of the United States. India’s will be less than 30 per cent and 20 per cent of Britain and the United States respectively.” “Unmistakeable though is the extent of catch up, especially as these countries will retain their labour competitiveness for years to come. “While the West will remain richer for the foreseeable future, the economic picture of the 21st century is a relentless shift of economic power to the East,” Lord Paul, who is also the Chancellor of the Wolverhampton University in the UK said. He said while many commentators treated these statistics as an example of the threat that “we face in Europe, we should also bear in mind that such growth gave manufacturers greater opportunities to sell into new emerging markets.” Other long-term economic debate has been focused on demographics, and how stagnant or declining populations would slow the global economy. “This rapid internationalisation, which leaves manufacturing more exposed than any other sector of the economy, is also having a huge impact on the ownership of companies,” Lord Paul said. —
PTI
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Panipat resident gets Honda City from Reliance Infocomm
Chandigarh, March 30 Mr Kamal was handed over the car by Mr Himanshu Kapania, CEO, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, Reliance Infocomm Limited. The company had announced “Reliance Infocomm First Anniversary Celebrations” in January 2004, wherein all customers in the Punjab circle, who pay their Reliance India Mobile bills in the 18-day duration of January 21, 2004 to February 7, 2004, would automatically be eligible to win prizes as part of the celebrations . The celebration offer included free talk time worth Rs 1 lakh to be awarded to winners of a daily lucky draw held during the offer period. There were more than 300 winners per day, translating to total talk time gifted worth Rs 18 lakh, to more than 5,400 customers. Plus the company offered a waiver of 15 per cent of the bill payment as guaranteed gift to all customers who made their payment in the duration, said an official press release.
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Bus, truck sales soar 35.7 pc
New Delhi, March 30 A total of 2.29 lakh buses and trucks were sold during April-February 2003-04 while 1.68 lakh units were sold during the same period last year, a data compiled by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) revealed. The sale of Medium and Heavy (M&H) buses and trucks grew by 39.2 per cent to 1.41 lakh units while that of Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) jumped by 30.4 per cent to 87,567 units. In the M&H segment, bus sales surged to 42 per cent to 1.19 lakh units while that of heavy buses rose by 25.8 per cent to 21,668 units. Sales of light trucks went up 40.6 per cent to 70,788 units while that of light buses posted a marginal 0.19 per cent dip to 16,779 units. Commercial vehicle sales, one of the yardsticks to gauge economic growth, has been on a northward drive since last couple of months. —
PTI
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IT Dept collects 16.87 cr
Ludhiana, March 30 According to Mr Satpaul, Commissioner Income Tax the surrender of money ranges from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 1.15 crore. One hosiery unit surrendered a sum of Rs 1.15 crore highest during the survey operations. One soap making unit surrendered a sum of Rs 40 lakh. The units survey included hosiery manufacturers, agricultural implements and oil extraction units. The commissioner income tax maintained that the surrender of money business houses indicated that there was scope for further increase the revenue under the income tax head. He said that the people in Ludhiana were making heavy expenditure on social functions and the purchasing power was also on the increase which was indicative of opening of the new branded showrooms in the town. The income tax department had no intention to harass the honest tax payers and in view of this, the department had been persuading the tax evaders through the taxation bar and other
business organisations to file their return and pay the tax honestly. The commissioner income tax disclosed that the target for collecting income tax from Chief Commissioner Ludhiana including Jalandhar had been revised to Rs 650 crore for the current financial year from Rs 617 crore.
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New pension scheme to be delayed
New Delhi, March 30 “The expectations are that the pension fund managers will be appointed within 3-4 months,” Joint Secretary (Pension and Capital Markets), U K Sinha told PTI. He said the mutual fund would have to compete with the pension sector. The Government had already put in place an interim Pension Regulatory and Development Authority and is
working on the nitty-gritty regarding the number of players, minimum capital required and the foreign direct investment limit in the segment, which would initially target the employees in the central sphere. “Nothing had been decided so far,” he said. Many financial entities like UTI Mutual Fund, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Prudential have evinced interest in foraying into the pension segment. Concerned over mounting pension liabilities, the Union Cabinet had approved the opening up of the pension sector and the Government had broadly approved the schemes to be launched by the pension fund houses. UTI Investors Services, which is now handling Permanent Account Number allotment for the Income Tax Department, along with National Securities Depositories is keen on putting bid for the CRA. —
PTI
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India top recipient of Japan’s loan
Tokyo, March 30 Although the loan was 12 per cent less from the previous year, it is for the first time that India became the top beneficiary of Japan’s low-interest, yen-dominated official loans, a media report said today. Indonesia was the second-largest
recipient with Rs 43.53 billion. However, the amount of debt to China, which had been receiving the highest amount of loan for the past four years, decreased by 20 per cent to around Rs 40.24 billion during this fiscal, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. The loans will be extended in the next fiscal 2003-04, a Cabinet meeting decided today. —
PTI
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Apex bank MD suspended
Bhopal, March 30 Apex bank’s Chairman and Congress state unit President Subhash Yadav had appointed Khati as the Managing Director few days ago replacing government appointed P.N. Singh. A joint director in the cooperatives department, Khati had been sent on deputation to the Apex bank as an officer on special duty (OSD), official sources said, adding that yesterday he was placed under suspension. During the period of suspension, he would be attached to the office of the Registrar and Commissioner, Cooperatives in Bhopal, they said. —
PTI
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