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Plan panel bullish on 8 pc GDP growth
HDFC net spurts 28.86 pc
Lufthansa to spread wings
Bharti corners 25 per cent market share |
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India rejects EU-US formula
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Plan panel bullish on 8 pc GDP growth New Delhi, May 7 “Last year GDP growth was over 8 per cent. Presently we are witnessing a buoyancy in the economy. And those who had questioned the economy’s ability are now beginning to accept that India can develop in a good way”, Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson K.C. Pant said. “With visible buoyancy in the economy, there is no room for scepticism”, Mr Pant said. Stating that “we must aspire for more”, Mr Pant said that despite severe drought conditions in 2002-03, there were enough indications the targeted growth rate would be achieved during the Xth Plan period. “GDP growth should go up. We would certainly like to see eight per cent growth rate in 2002-07”, he said. At the same time, he indicated that there were a few problem areas. While plan expenditure was primarily meant for creating permanent assets, these were being used for current expenditure by certain states. This carried the danger of pushing the states in a debt trap situation. Mr Pant was speaking to newspersons after emerging out of lengthy meeting with the Chairman of the 12th Finance Commission Dr C. Rangarajan. There were also indications that the Planning Commission could consider to come out with a debt relief package to strengthen the fiscal situation of states. Even though the Vajpayee government had introduced the debt swap option it has not yet had the desired impact on the fiscal health of the states. The Finance Commission Chairman Dr Rangarajan said that the report on the devolution of funds to the states could be delayed by some time in view of the elections. The 12th Finance Commission was originally scheduled to submit the report on devolution of funds to states from the Central pool for the period 2005-10 by July end this year. |
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HDFC net spurts 28.86 pc
Mumbai, May 7 The board has recommended a dividend of Rs 13.5 per share for the fiscal 2003-04, HDFC said in a release here today. The income of operations on consolidated basis for FY-04 increased to Rs 3,248.15 crore (Rs 3,085.05 crore in FY-03), the housing finance major said. On a standalone basis, the net profit jumped to Rs 851.78 crore (Rs 690.29 crore) in FY-04 with income of operations pegged at Rs 3,068.76 crore (Rs 2,967.32 crore). For the fourth quarter ended March, net profit and income from operations stood at Rs 297.97 crore (Rs 239.19 crore) and Rs 824.31 crore (Rs 789.17 crore). Approvals for FY-04 aggregated to Rs 15,216 crore (Rs 11,732 crore), representing an increase of 30 per cent. Disbursements for the year rose by 28 per cent to Rs 12,697 crore (Rs 9,951 crore). HDFC, in a communication to BSE, said the board has given an approval to raise upto $ 500 million by issuance of foreign currency bonds or such other securities, subject to a nod by the shareholders and other necessary clearances. The loan portfolio, inclusive of investment in preference shares, debentures and inter-corporate deposits for financing real estate projects, as on March 2004 amounted to Rs 28,860 crore (Rs 22,668 crore), representing an increase of 27 per cent.
— PTI |
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Lufthansa to spread wings New Delhi, May 7 The Executive Vice-President, Marketing and Sales, and Member of the Executive Board of Lufthansa, Mr Thierry Antinori, told newspersons here that India will be among the first few routes to receive Lufthansa’s brand new business class products, offered on the Airbus 340-300. “We are confident that these additional services will further strengthen our commercial and cultural ties with India”, Mr Antinori said. He said India’s share in the airline’s Asia Pacific revenues grew in 2003 to 17 per cent from 13 per cent in 2002. The airline plans to add fifth Indian destination in its network soon. Its existing destinations in India are New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. The likely destination is either Hyderabad or Thiruvananthapuram. The flights between New Delhi and Munich will soon feature FlyNet, the on-board broadband Internet connectivity in all classes. Also, the airline will introduce business class service on its Airbus A 340-300 aircraft to the Indian market for next month. According to company officials the company is also exploring the option to expand the wholly owned subsidiary in India—LSG Sky Chefs. “We feel that India offers huge opportunity to our air catering business, despite the fact that our global air catering business was worst hit in 2003 mainly due to the slowdown in the United States where we are the market leader,” company officials said. |
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Bharti corners 25 per cent market share
New Delhi, May 7 According to the latest subscriber base figures released by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), subscriber additions during April was 9.9 lakh. This is a 28 per cent decline from the average January-March 2004 figures and a 34 per cent decline from March 2004. At 67.58 lakh user base, Bharti had a market share of 24.89 per cent in April 2004. It added 2.54 lakh subscribers during the month. Hutch occupied the second slot with a total subscriber base of 53.88 lakh and a market share of 19.85 per cent. It added 2.3 lakh subscribers in April. BSNL ended the month with a subscriber base of 53.55 lakh with a market share of 19.73 per cent. The net addition for BSNL in April was 1.2 lakh subscribers. BPL cornered 20.17 lakh subscribers in April to have a market share of 7.43 per cent while state-owned MTNL which operates only in Delhi and Mumbai ended with a market share of 1.39 per cent with a subscriber base of 3.77 lakh. Reliance’s April subscriber base was 3.19 lakh with a market share of 3.02 per cent. Spice Telecom had a subscriber base of 12,46,844 with a market share of 4.59 per cent.
— PTI |
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India rejects EU-US formula New Delhi, May 7 “There is a shared feeling that the blended formula is biased in favour of the tariff structures of its proponents, enabling them to maintain the protectionist status quo, since the highest tariffs will be subject to the lowest tariff reduction,” the Commerce Ministry said here in a statement, reiterating the sentiments of the meeting of the G-20 which concluded in Geneva. Following the failure to agree on a framework text in Cancun, the G-20 undertook an overall assessment of the “blended formula”. It concluded that its structural flaws would prevent proper delivery on the Doha mandate for market access. “It is a meticulously structured approach to accommodate the interests of the proponents and detrimental to the interests of the majority of the membership,” the G-20 said. It said in view of difference between the tariff structures of developed and developing countries, the US-EU formula would impose onerous burden of tariff reduction on developing countries. At the same time, it would enable the developed countries to protect their tariff peaks on products of export interest to several members, while the application of the Swiss and duty-free components on their cluster of already low tariffs would result in minimal reductions. |
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