 |
|
Tyre firms to jack up prices by 10 per cent
SEBI to introduce new system for stocks
India on IPR violators’ list |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
That’s IT
GRAPHICS:
|
|
Tyre firms to jack up prices by 10 per cent
New Delhi, May 4 Speaking from Ludhiana, Mr Rummy Chabbra, managing director, Metro Tyres, disclosed that due to export subsidy on natural rubber, domestic rubber producers were exporting on a large scale, resulting in a rise in rubber prices in the domestic market. “We cannot absorb the increase in raw material costs, and would be forced to hike tyre prices by 10-15 per cent shortly,” he added. Apollo tyres have also announced to increase prices by 5-7 per cent by month end. Tyre manufacturers has so far resisted the move to increase tyre prices, say industry experts, due to stiff competition from imported Chinese tyres costing about 30 per cent lower than domestic tyres. Mr Raghupati Singhania, Chairman, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) says: “ The steep increase in the natural rubber prices during the last one year and indications of further price spurt are matters of serious concern to the tyre industry that would be soon forced to revise tyre prices.” He claimed that average rubber price of natural rubber had increased from Rs 30,360 per metric tonne in 2000-01 to Rs 52,350 in 2003-04. The prices during the past one year alone, had increased by over 30 per cent, he said. As per industry estimates, the annual consumption of natural rubber by domestic tyre industry is around 3.50 lakh MT. According to Mr Singhania, “an increase of Rs 1 per kg in natural rubber will result in an additional burden of Rs 35 crore on the domestic industry. Hence, the additional burden on the tyre industry during the past three years have crossed Rs 770 crore.” The magnitude of financial impact could be gauged from the fact, he said, that natural rubber accounted for 32 per cent of the cost of raw material, higher among all raw materials. Criticising Centre’s policy of offering export subsidy on natural rubber, the tyre manufacturers claimed that government was providing subsidy of Rs 3,500 to Rs 5,00 per MT on natural rubber, thus distorting the rubber prices in the domestic market. Interestingly, they claimed, that government was offering high subsidy to natural rubber producers, despite the fact that prices in the international market were currently higher than in the domestic market. While tyre-dealers and consumers are happy over the entry of Chinese tyres, ATMA claims “ in China hidden subsidies to the tyre manufacturers, fixed exchange rate, and subsidised rubber exports from India were hitting the Indian industry, though the cost of raw material to both the industries was almost equivalent.” Mr Singhania claimed subsidy had resulted in export of over 70,000 MT of natural rubber in 2003-04 as against 13,300 MT in 2000-01 bringing the stock level of natural rubber in the country to less than 60 days of consumption by the tyre industry. The tyre manufacturers have called upon the Centre to discontinue subsidy on natural rubber and reduce custom duty on the import of rubber to check the rise in tyre prices and to boost the industry.
|
|
US prunes for Punjab New Delhi, May 4 From countable stores in New Delhi’s Khan Market and INA market, prunes have now earned shelf space in about twenty stores each in Chandigarh and Ludhiana. The Executive Director of the California Dried Plum Board Prune Marketing Committee, Mr Richard L. Peterson, is in India to tap the market here and develop India as one of the five top markets for prunes in the world. The top markets for Californian prunes are Japan, UK, Italy and Germany. Western Europe is a highly developed market for prunes. Mr Peterson told mediapersons here on Tuesday that the Board is excited at the prospect of opening a new market and see it grow. “Sixty per cent of the world’s prunes are produced in California. Our total annual production is about 75,000 metric tonnes. We export 50 per cent of our crop to 50 countries. The annual import through direct shipment in Japan is 16,000 metric tonnes followed by 4,700 metric tonnes in UK and 4,500 to 5000 metric tonnes in Italy,” Mr Peterson said. The improved health consciousness of Indians has also promoted the Board to launch prunes. Known for their antioxidant power, prunes are prescribed by doctors for new mothers, during pregnancy and to prevent bone loss in women after menopause. A good source of Vitamin A, Potassium, Magnesium, Iron, Copper and Fibre, prunes also contain insoluble fibre that may protect against certain kinds of cancer. Launched in India a year back, Californian prunes have been well received by Indian consumers. Mr Keith Sunderlal and Mr Sumit Saran who represent the California Prune Board in India are satisfied with the growth of the prune market. “Ludhiana has cropped up as one of the biggest market of prunes. So has Pune. The Ludhiana market has come up very well,” says Mr Sunderlal. Mr Saran says that the last six months have witnessed a new trend in the prune market. “For the first time, the importers have moved to direct shipment. The prunes were earlier coming through consolidated containers. In 2001-‘02, the consolidated container shipment was eighty tonnes. This year, we are expecting a direct shipment of 300-500 tonnes.”
|
|
SEBI to introduce new system for stocks
Kolkata, May 4 “The matter was being looked into by an internal committee, after which it would be referred to the primary markets committee and ultimately to the board for approval,” SEBI Chairman G N Bajpai told reporters here today. Mr Bajpai said SEBI had taken special initiative for issuing IDR guidelines as it would help Indian investors to share a portion of wealth created by outsiders, as had happened in the case of ADRs and GDRs where wealth created by Indian firms was shared by foreigners. Asked about the time frame of announcing the guidelines, he said that it would be done in a couple of months. Mr Bajpai said that although the guidelines were not yet in place, SEBI had allowed Asian Development Bank to raise debt from the Indian market. Mr Bajpai said SEBI would also introduce T+1 settlement system on the Indian stock exchanges. This was important to impart efficiency and profitability, he said adding it would attract more foreign fund managers to India. He, however, did not give a deadline as to when the T+1 settlement system would be introduced in the country. Another area, which SEBI was also looking at, was adoption of an integrated surveillance system that will encompass all segments of the capital market. The SEBI chairman said there was a need for an integrated surveillance system for equity and derivatives segments in the Indian stock market. An expert committee had already been appointed to look into the issue, he added. Asked about the recent fall in stock market prices on the bourses in the last seven days, Bajpai said that ‘SEBI was on high alert’ and added that action would be taken if anything unusual was noticed.
— PTI
|
|
India on IPR violators’ list Washington, May 4 A report by the US Trade Representative’s office said that EU, India and 13 other countries were on Priority Watch List for shortcomings in enforcing intellectual property protection.
Thirty-four other countries were on a “watch list” under Section 301. Besides India and EU, ‘Priority Watch List’ nations were Argentina, the Bahamas, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, South Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan and Turkey. While India has improved its IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) regime, protection of intellectual property in some areas remains “weak due to inadequate laws and ineffective enforcement,” the annual Special 301 report said. India’s 2002 patent law amendments exempt subject matter such as biotechnological inventions, methods for agriculture and horticulture, processes for the treatment of humans, animals, or plants, and substances prepared by chemical processes from patent protection, it said.
— PTI
|
|
Air France takes over KLM
Paris, May 4 Air France, nonetheless, extended its all-share offer to May 21 in a operation that makes Air France-KLM the third-biggest carrier worldwide in terms of sales. The takeover has the effect of reducing the French state’s stake from 54 per cent of Air France to 44.7 per cent of Air France-KLM, a de facto privatisation of the French airline, the statement said. Under terms of the exchange offer valid from April 5 to May 3, Air France had to acquire more than 70 per cent of outstanding KLM shares, in a deal worth about $1 billion. Trading in the new company is to begin tomorrow on the Amsterdam and Paris stock exchanges. Air France will issue 45,938,857 new shares and 41,762,597 warrants, including 8,479,306 American Depositary Shares (ADS) and 7,708,460 American Depositary Warrants (ADW). The warrants and the ADWs have a maturity of three and a half years from May 6, 2004 and can be exercised starting November 6, 2005.
— AFP
|
|
That’s IT
New Delhi, May 4 In an ex-parte order, the “unidentified” registrant of e-mail account “unionagainstcancer@hotmail.com” was restrained from using the domain name “www.tata.com” claiming support of the Tata Group in the activities of his NGO. Justice C K Mahajan directed Hotmail to respond to the notice within two weeks and said Tata Sons Ltd has disclosed a prima facie case in which the balance of convenience was in its favour and unless the injunction prayed for was not granted forthwith, irreparable injury would be caused to them. The court said: “it is necessary to preserve the veil of anonymity and direct ISP Hotmail to provide the names and addresses, telephone numbers, bill records and information relating to the computer and modem of a person with the e-mail ‘unionagainstcancer@hotmail.com’ in relation to the messages”. “In the meantime, the registrants of the said e-mail account who is responsible for the chain mail claiming support in sponsorship of the Tata Group and the mark Tata for use of domain name ‘www.tata.com’ is restrained from circulating any communication using the Tata mark or domain name till the next date of hearing, that is July 8,” the court said.
Infosys
Indian software firm Infosys Technologies Ltd has launched operations in Mauritius, hoping to use the country’s French and English language skills to boost its European market share, a company official said on Monday. The Nasdaq-listed firm opened a disaster recovery centre on the Indian Ocean island on April 26 and plans to develop software for its French-speaking European market, said Ramesh Ganapathy, head of operations for Infosys Technologies (Mauritius) Ltd. “We started looking at possible new locations in 2001 and finally decided that Mauritius was the right place for us to be,” he told Reuters in an interview. Infosys, India’s largest listed software services exporter, has about 350 clients worldwide, with the European market accounting for 20 per cent of its annual revenues. The North American market accounts for 65.5 per cent.
IT exports
Indian exports of information technology products to UAE is expected to go up by 25 per cent in the year 2003-2004, buoyed by increasing demand from the region, Africa and Russia, a top IT official has said. “The exports to the UAE, a major re-export centre for IT products, which stood at $ 102 million in 2002-2003 is expected to touch $ 125 million in the current financial year,” Mr S. Lakshminarayanan, Additional Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of IT said. “The total exports of IT products is projected to go up to $ 1.38 billion during 2003-2004, up from $ 1.08 billion in the previous year,” he said.
Sasser virus
The fast-spreading “Sasser” worm ravaged 1,600 computers in Taiwan’s postal service and infected hundreds more in Hong Kong, but the virus-like global attack might have been temporarily delayed today in other parts of Asia as companies and homes left their computers switched off during long holidays. Sasser, which also struck large US, German and British firms, infects computers by exploiting a flaw in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system. Once inside, the worm scans the Internet for others to attack, causing some computers to continually crash and reboot. Sasser spreads faster than most viruses because it does not require users to click on an e-mail attachment to activate it.
— Agencies
|
|
Timex watches market, eyes 33 pc share New Delhi, May 4 Mr Kapil Kapoor, Managing Director, Timex, while talking to mediapersons, after the launch of all-new Timex 150 years watch collection, said: “We have made investments worth $ 15 million since 1999 and expect to get returns from this year onwards.” Cricket speed king and Timex brand ambassador Brett Lee was also present on this occasion. The new Timex watch collection will comprise of 25 styles, 14 for men and 11 for women and would be in the Rs 1925 – 2595 price range. Though the company has been making losses yet it has chalked out a revival strategy based on more brand launches in the mid-premium and fashion segments to hit the target of more than 33 per cent market share in terms of value by 2007.
|
|
bb
Reliance Info Electrolux Liquid stitches Airtel Order to oil cos |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Video
