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Nath bullish on trade with Israel
Anil’s posers to Mukesh on ownership issue
ILO praises India for reducing poverty
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Taxes account for 50 pc of retail oil prices
Virbhadra meets PM; seeks sops
Infosys Australia executes $ 450-m project
Govt to introduce silver hallmarking
HPCL to set up Rs 2500-cr plant
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Nath bullish on trade with Israel
New Delhi, December 8 Mr Nath also announced the setting up of a Joint Study Group to formulate a comprehensive economic partnership between the two countries. Addressing the India-Israel Business Conference, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), which was attended by his counterpart, Mr Ehud Olmert, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Industry, Trade, Labour and Communications of Israel, Mr Nath indicated that in 2004, Indo-Israeli trade should comfortably cross $2 billion. Mr Olmert termed the appointment of the joint study group “as a major breakthrough” in the economic and business relations between India and Israel, while Mr Kamal Nath said that the formation of the group would pave the way for a quantum jump in business ties across a range of sectors including R&D, biotechnology, IT, telecom, agri technology and other cutting edge technology. The volume of bilateral had set a new record every year since 1991 when India’s trade with Israel was a mere $ 142 million, he noted, adding that India was Israel’s second largest partner in Asia and 9th largest globally. The basket of products was expanding, even though diamonds continue to be the most important item. “We expect this positive trend to continue, as India expands its range of its goods and as its appetite for high-tech product grows”, he said. Referring to the diamond trade between India and Israel, Mr Nath said the creative and successful leveraging of mutual strengths witnessed in the diamond trade between the two countries should be replicated in other sectors. “Neither India nor Israel are producers of rough diamonds. It is the intelligent use of the synergy and the business acumen of the diamond communities of the two countries that have given them a dominant position in the world,” he observed. He invited Israeli investors to participate in the development of infrastructure and in the telecom sector, which offered vast opportunities for investments and collaborations.
Diamond exporters and socks makers will be here
Israel’s third-largest diamond exporter LID Ltd, with exports worth more than $ 250 million per year, has shut down its local operations and is moving to India due to the lower manufacturing costs there, a report said today.
Its relocation, owing to shrinking profitability, has come as a complete shock to the industry, business daily, The Marker, reported. Israel Diamond Manufacturers Association President Moti Ganz confirmed to the daily that Lid has closed its local offices. Similarly, a leading global apparel company of Israel, Delta Galil Industries, will invest $ 5 million to set up a socks factory in India to improve its competitive edge by minimising manufacturing costs. The company to be set up in cooperation with a local socks manufacturer in Silvassa, east of Mumbai, will employ 350 workers, and use over 200 looms plus finishing equipment to meet the target of manufacturing a million pair of socks per month within a year, business daily Globes reported. The Nasdaq listed company believes that the factory’s production, which will be exported to Europe and the US, should reach $ 15 million. Besides these, venture capital fund, Pitango, has said that one of its portfolio companies would be opening an R&D centre in India. —
PTI |
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Anil’s posers to Mukesh on ownership issue
New Delhi, December 8 Sources close to Mr Anil Ambani, who is Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the group, confirmed to UNI that he had requested Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani to provide information to him on several points related to the latter’s claim. “If management issues had been resolved in Dhirubhai’s lifetime, then how is it that Anil D Ambani has no details or information about the same even till today?” the sources said. They said Mr Anil Ambani had also sought clarification from his brother on why no disclosures had been made to the stock exchanges and market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India so far. “If management issues had been resolved in Dhirubhai’s lifetime, how is it that no disclosures have been made to Reliance Industry Ltd (RIL) Board or its 36 lakh individual and institutional shareholders even till today,” Mr Anil Ambani is understood to have asked. He has also sought to know why his powers as Managing Director were sought to be substantially curtailed only in July, 2004, and not during Mr Dhirubhai Ambani’s lifetime (“when, according to Mukesh, these issues had been resolved”) or in 2002 when the founder of the group died. Mr Anil Ambani is also understood to have wondered why, nearly three weeks after Mr Mukesh Ambani had made a statement on the subject on November 22, “no further details, information or documentation” had been made available to anyone. Mr Anil Ambani’s questions to his elder brother come just a few days after other members of the Ambani family had asked Mr Mukesh Ambani to provide “appropriate details” of the steps he claimed his father had taken to settle ownership issues. Family sources had said that Mr Ambani’s mother Kokilaben Ambani, Mr Anil Ambani and sisters Deepti and Neena had made this request over the weekend. They are understood to have said that if Mr Mukesh Ambani could produce evidence to show that if Dhirubhai Ambani had, indeed, taken such steps, they would abide by the decision.
Anil meets Montek
Amid the ongoing tussle between the two Ambani brothers over ownership of Reliance empire, Anil Ambani today met Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. “We discussed a whole range of issues, including power and oil sectors. It was mostly on their power and petroleum projects,” Ahluwalia said. “This was more of a courtesy call,” he said, adding that no discussion took place about the goings on in the Reliance group. Asked whether they discussed about the future of the over the 3500-MW power project in Uttar Pradesh, officials declined to comment. —
UNI, PTI
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ILO praises India for reducing poverty
New Delhi, December 8 “The Indian experience can be taken as a good example of the fact that growth in productivity usually goes hand in hand with growth in employment as well as poverty reduction,” states the ILO World Employment Report 2004-05 released here today. The service sector in India has seen impressive improvements in productivity and employment. In contrast, the agricultural sector has witnessed the smallest improvement in terms of productivity but greater employment growth than the industrial sector. In South Asia, unemployment and employment to population ratios have not changed considerably over the past 10 years despite solid GDP growth rates of over five per cent, points out report. Unemployment rates are just below five per cent and employment to population ratios are 57 per cent, the same level as 1993. Within the region, while Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have managed to improve productivity only slightly since 1993, India has in the same period increased the output produced per person employed by almost 40 per cent, claimed ILO. Generating more and better jobs must become the central plank of the global drive to reduce poverty as called for in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the ILO said.
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Taxes account for 50 pc of retail oil prices
New Delhi, December 8 The Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar yesterday told Parliament that petrol would cost Rs 17.46 per litre and diesel Rs 18.07 in Delhi if all duties and taxes on the two fuels were to be completely abolished. In Delhi, for instance, a consumer pays Rs 37.84 for a litre of petrol. This includes Rs 12.07 as excise duty (16 per cent basic excise duty, 7 per cent as special excise duty, Rs 1.50 per litre as additional excise duty and Rs 6 as special additional excise duty), Rs 2.12 per litre as customs duty, Rs 6.19 as sales tax over and 2 per cent as education cess of aggregate duties of excise, over and above the basic refinery gate price. Similarly, Rs 26.28 charged for a litre of diesel in Delhi includes Rs 2.29 for customs duty, Rs 3.15 for excise and Rs 2.77 for sales tax. Retail selling price of petrol and diesel is calculated by the oil companies by taking into account the following components: Basic price at refinery level on import parity basis, freight up to depots, marketing and cost margins, state specific levies, excise duty, additional excise duty/special additional excise duty, surcharges and cess, delivery charges from depot to retail pump outlet, sales tax and other local levies and dealers commission The basic selling prices of petrol and diesel are uniform at all refinery locations. For the government, the plethora of taxes does generate substantial revenues.
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Virbhadra meets PM; seeks sops
New Delhi, December 8 State Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here today and apprised him of the progress made by the state in the social sector. He said investment was required in industry to accelerate development, which could come mainly through the private sector. The Chief Minister said in order to create a large industrial base in the state, substantial opportunities should be available for making investment and private sector would require sufficient time to make best use of these incentives. He said a reasonable time frame was required for making investment decisions and getting statutory clearances, particularly in medium and large sector industries. Mr Virbhadra Singh urged the Centre to release the withheld revenue deficit grant for 2002-03 and 2003-04 amounting to Rs 267.86 crore. He said the grant had been withheld even though Himachal Pradesh is a special category state. The Chief Minister said deficit due to development expenditure, investment in social and physical infrastructure and expenditure incurred on relief and rehabilitation measures should be legitimately funded through consolidated fund of the state. He said that 11th Finance Commission had taken a rigid view and it did not provide for salary burden beyond an annual increase of 5 per cent per annum and interest payment burden beyond 10 per cent per annum.
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Infosys Australia executes $ 450-m project
Bangalore, December 8 The Pass (Privatised Arrangements Support Systems) Bus System suite of business applications project commenced in December 2002 and was successfully delivered on time and on budget. In total, the Victorian Government manages over 1,700 individual bus contracts across 1,600 bus operators, covering metropolitan, regional and school bus services. The system is a suite of Web-based applications using a variety of technologies, including J2EE, Websphere and Microsoft SQL.
Hewlett Packard
Hewlett Packard (HP) today announced it is the first vendor to ship more than 1 lakh disk arrays into storage area network (SAN) environments. HP helped pioneer the concept of open SANs in 1997 and this milestone highlights the company’s continued success in driving broad industry adoption of SANs with both enterprise-class and small and mid-size business customers.
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Govt to introduce silver hallmarking
New Delhi, December 8 The gold hallmarking, which was introduced few years ago, has gained popularity with large number of jewellers opting voluntarily for hallmarking of their products. Earlier, inaugurating the two-day Regional Workshop on Certification and
Conformity Assessment, the Secretary said, “internationally recognised certification has become a vital element for the developing countries to compete and sustain in the global trading environment.”
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HPCL to set up Rs 2500-cr plant
Mumbai, December 8 Speaking to newsmen here today, HPCL Chairman and Managing Director Mahesh B Lal said even as the land needed for the plant has been requisitioned by MRPL, the entire plan for this project is still to be concretised with all the nitty gritty involved. —
UNI
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