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Mittal has Ukraine steel plant under his belt
Raise Rs 60,000 cr over next five years, FM to ask banks
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Murthy may not reconsider decision
Ind-Swift’s Mohali centre to start in Nov
India, New Zealand redraw air pact
RIL seeks permission to export LPG, kerosene
Gowda to inaugurate IT conference
INS opposes proposed tax on advertisements in newspapers
British Airways’ flights to India
Corp Bank posts Rs 105.60 crore profit
Industrial activity gathers strength: RBI
Corporate results
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Mittal has Ukraine steel plant under his belt
Kiev, October 24 The high-stakes auction had been a campaign promise of President Viktor Yushchenko, part of his bid to prove to investors that the former Soviet republic is committed to transparency and open for foreign investment. Yushchenko was there to watch. Mittal Steel bought the mill for 24.2 billion hryvna, well above what analysts had predicted and more than five times what former President Leonid Kuchma’s son-in-law and another Ukrainian tycoon paid for the mill in 2004 — a sale Yushchenko called a theft. The sale of Kryvorizhstal, which produces 20 per cent of Ukraine’s entire metal output, becomes the single largest foreign investment-ever in this former Soviet republic. Competing against Netherlands-based Mittal was the Industrial Group Consortium, which brings together the Industrial Union of Donbass and the world’s second-largest steel producer, Luxembourg-based Arcelor SA, as well as the Ukraine-registered LLCSmart-Group. The auction began with all three companies sticking sealed envelopes in a glass bin. State officials pried open the case and using scissors and sliced apart the envelopes to read the starting bids. The consortium linked to Arcelor had offered the highest starting price, 12.6 billion hryvna (nearly $2.5 million). The sale then went to an open auction. Bidding was feverish. Representatives of the three competing companies sat at separate desks and raised white placards to hike the price up in 100 million hryvna increments.
— AP
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Raise Rs 60,000 cr over next five years, FM to ask banks
New Delhi, October 24 With a moderate inflation, Mr Chidambaram saw no pressure on interest rates as well. “Bankers told me that the interest rates will remain stable in short to medium term,” he said. Till date, both government and the RBI expect GDP to grow by 7 per cent this fiscal with a moderate 5 to 5.5 per cent inflation and stable interest rates. Mr Chidambaram said the PSU banks will be asked to raise Rs 60,000 crore to meet credit needs over the next five to six years at a meeting of bank chairpersons to be convened next month. “Banks capital has to be augmented every year for the next five years. My calculation shows that we require about Rs 60,000 crore of additional capital for the next five to six years,” Mr Chidambaram said after inaugurating the Network Operating Centre of Punjab National Bank. “Where are we going to raise this capital? These are the questions that I pose to CMDs of the PSU banks when I call them for the meeting after announcement of the first half results,” he said. PSU banks need additional Rs 8,000 to 9,000 crore of capital formation annually for the next five years if they continue to finance 30 per cent of GDP and the economy grows at the rate of 7 per cent each year, he said. On WTO issues, he said India has asked developed nations to shed the “fortress mentality” to break the impasse in crucial agriculture issues in the global trade talks. “The developed countries still have a fortress mentality. They have to give it up. The two hands (developed and developing nations) must join so that the Hong Kong WTO ministerial deadline is not missed,” Chidambaram. He expressed the optimism that “we still hope that the Hong Kong ministerial ends favourably and they (developed nations) agree on agriculture issues.” Developed and developing nations had agreed to further liberalise trade. The developing nations wanted the industrialised nations to cut subsidies and opening up their farm sector. During the last few weeks, India has been pitching for finalising a proposal on selection and treatment of “special products” pertaining to livelihood and food security of developing nations, before any decision is taken on the formula for market access in agriculture.
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Murthy may not reconsider decision
Infosys Chairman N.R. Naryana Murthy may not take back his resignation from the board of
BIAL. Talking to few reporters here, BIAL Chief Executive Officer Albert Brunner said Mr Murthy had refused to reconsider his resignation.
He said the BIAL itself was unhappy at the controversy adding the organisation felt Mr Murthy had played a pivotal role at the highest level to ensure the project was passed. He said the delay had partly been caused due to the fact that laws had to be amended to pass an airport, which was coming up through the public private partnership mode.
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Ind-Swift’s Mohali centre to start in Nov
Chandigarh, October 24 Mr V.K Mehta, Joint Managing Director of the company, said the three facilities would cater to manufacturing of statins (installed capacity of 40tpa), anti-histamine drug (installed capacity of 27 tpa), besides a new Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients ( API) facility at Samba, Jammu, to manufacture bulk drugs for domestic market. The new facility at Jammu is situated in the tax-free zone and shall be entitled to a tax holiday for a period of 10 years. Giving details about the new R & D centre at Mohali, he said it would have all latest equipment and gadgets. The number of scientists at this centre will also be increased from 85 to 150 by 2006.
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India, New Zealand redraw air pact
New Delhi, October 24 Delegates from the two countries met at Queenstown on October 18 and 19 and agreed that designated airlines of India and New Zealand can operate up to seven services per week and exercise full third, fourth and fifth freedom traffic rights at intermediate points in Australia and Singapore on specified routes. It was also decided that code shared services involving designated airlines of both countries may be introduced without capacity restriction and with full traffic rights via the intermediate points in Australia and Singapore. Civil Aviation ministry officials said here today that for designated airlines of India, destination points that may be served in New Zealand are Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin. On the other hand for designated airlines of New Zealand, destination points that may be served in India are Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai. Officials exchanged views on the merits of including a ground handling provision in the agreement and decided that it will be considered in the future after India concludes its civil aviation policy review. The Indian delegation was headed by civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad and director general of civil aviation Satyendra Singh. The New Zealand delegation was headed by Mr John Bradbury who is deputy secretary access and services at the Ministry of Transport.
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RIL seeks permission to export LPG, kerosene
New Delhi, October 24 In its pre-Budget submissions, Reliance stated that its 660,000 barrels-a-day Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat faced containment problems due to public sector retailing firms — IndianOil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp — buying products way below the output from the refinery. State firms have a potential to produce 10 million tonnes of kerosene as against the expected demand of 9.6 million tonnes in 2005-06. Jamnagar refinery has offered 0.4 million tonnes superior kerosene oil
(SKO) to public sector firms and wants to export the remaining of 3.6 million tonnes of jet/aviation turbine
fuel/SKO produced by the refinery annually. — PTI
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Gowda to inaugurate IT conference
Bangalore, October 2 Mr Gowda has been chosen as the chief guest of the inaugural session of international conference in a decision, which has been taken during the last week only, according to official sources. Earlier, the Chief Minister had announced that UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi might inaugurate the conference. Officials, including Karnataka IT Secretary Shankarlinge Gowda, were sheepish today when asked when the decision had been taken to have Mr Gowda as chief guest of the conference. The IT Secretary declined to give any answer to this question only saying the decision had been taken by the Chief Minister. Observers said such a decision might not reflect well on the Karnataka government at a time when the Chief Minister is trying to persuade the Infosys chief to withdraw his resignation from the Chairmanship of BIAL. Mr Narayana Murthy had resigned from the board of the BIAL after facing criticism from Mr Deve Gowda who claimed he had not made any contribution towards the establishment of the international airport work on which has started recently. After his first remarks against the Infosys chief, the former Prime Minister had upped his ante two days ago claiming Mr Murthy was being used as a pawn by those who wanted to destabilise the coalition government in the state. He had also stated that he wanted all round development in Karnataka and not development in Bangalore alone. This is virtually against the government’s assurance to the IT sector that it will do its utmost to create the necessary infrastructure in Bangalore. Meanwhile Infosys is presently participating in the IT. In complex and is even sponsoring one of the events. Another group of companies, including Philips, who have formed an association by the name of Bangalore IT Forum (BITF), are still to come forward. Though the BITF had taken back its boycott of the conference it had announced that it would sponsor only events, which highlighted the infrastructure development on the anvil.
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INS opposes proposed tax on advertisements in newspapers
New Delhi, October 24 INS president Jacob Mathew said in a statement here that a 10.2 per cent tax on value of advertising space, as proposed in the Finance Ministry’s draft circular of October 10, will “stunt” the growth of the newspaper industry, and, therefore, should be dropped to allow Indian newspapers to “grow freely” in a democracy. Mr Mathew said the Centre had in 1996 exempted advertising space selling from taxation while imposing service tax on the advertising agency business. The government’s logic, he said, was that the advertising space sold was “not” a service. But the new “alarming” and “retrogade” proposal, which has no legislative sanction, can have a “disastrous” effect on the Indian newspaper industry, besides adversely affecting advertising revenues and the reach of the newspapers as well as burden the readers, he said. The proposed tax, Mr Mathew claimed, also “undermines” the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution and urged the Finance Ministry to drop the proposed levy to allow Indian newspapers to grow freely and face the global challenge. “The Constitution honours the Press as one of the four pillars of democracy, and newspapers are exempt from Central excise and sales tax as they are not considered ‘mere commodities’,” the INS president said.
— PTI
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British Airways’ flights to India
London:
British Airways today announced that it would increase its flights from London to different metros in India to almost double the present number from next Sunday.
The liberalisation of the aviation market between the two countries has enabled British Airways to increase its number of weekly flights from 19 to 35, the BA announced. It said services to Mumbai from London's Heathrow airport would double with two flights each day. While a new service to Bangalore would operate five times each week, flights to Chennai would increase from two to six per week.
— PTI
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Corp Bank posts Rs 105.60 crore profit
Mumbai, October 24 The bank’s profit jumped by over 70 per cent in the second quarter, as compared to the same quarter during the last financial year, the bank informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today. The total income of the bank has increased from Rs 685.81 crore in the second quarter of the present calendar year, to Rs 785.26 crore in this year’s September quarter. The bank has also posted a net profit of Rs 229.12 crore for the half year (H1) ended on September 30, as compared to Rs 132.90 crore for the same period, last year. The total income has increased from Rs 1,338.60 crore in H1-05 to Rs 1,551.61 crore for the present financial half-year, the bank added.
— PTI
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Industrial activity gathers strength: RBI
Mumbai, October 24 Led by the manufacturing sector, industrial production accelerated to 8.8 per cent during April-August this year from 8 per cent in the corresponding period last year, it said. Electricity and mining sectors, on the other hand, recorded a deceleration, it said. Mining sector was worst-hit during the period declining from 5.2 per cent to 2 per cent in April-August 2005 compared to the same period last year.
— PTI
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Reliance Capital posts Rs 157 cr profit
Mumbai, October 24 The total income also shot up by 76 per cent at Rs 247 crore as against Rs 140 crore in the corresponding period a year ago, according to the company statement here. The cash profits also looked healthy with Rs 200 crore for this quarter, which stood at Rs 60 crore for the same quarter in 2004-05. The earnings per share (EPS) also grew at Rs 12.1 as against Rs 3.6 in the same period last year, showing a growth of 236 per cent. The consolidated EPS stood at Rs 13 per share. The total assets of the company stood at Rs 3,627 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2005. After this results, the company will rank among the top three Indian private sector financial services in terms of net worth. Dabur’s bonus shares
Dabur India today reported a 20.6 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 52.05 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal and announced a 150 per cent dividend and one bonus share per share held. After a Board meeting, the company reported a 8.96 per cent increase in total income to Rs 332.94 crore against Rs 305.55 crore in the year-ago period. Dabur declared an interim dividend of 150 per cent, translating into Rs 1.50 per equity share having face value of Re 1 each, for 2005-06. The Board proposed to issue bonus shares in 1:1 ratio, subject to shareholder approval.
Birla Corp net up
Birla Corporation has posted a net profit of Rs 18.16 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2005, as comReliance Capital posts Rs 157 cr profitpared to Rs 13.38 crore for the similar quarter in the previous fiscal, posting an increase of 35.72 per cent. Informing the BSE here today, the company said its total income has decreased by 1.16 per cent to Rs 264.53 crore for the quarter under review from Rs 267.60 crore in the same period a year ago.
Indo-Gulf Fertilisers
Aditya Birla Group company Indo-Gulf Fertilisers Ltd today posted a 38.85 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 22.48 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2005, as compared to Rs 16.19 crore for the same period last fiscal. Total income, however, decreased 9 per cent to Rs 219.41 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2005 from Rs 241.58 crore in the year-ago period, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Ashok Leyland gains
Commercial vehicles major Ashok Leyland has reported a 74.2 per cent rise in net profit for the quarter ended September 30 at Rs 75 crore against Rs 43 crore in the same period last year. The Hinduja group company said sales turnover in the period grew 37.6 per cent to Rs 1,441 crore from Rs 1,047 crore in Q2 of last fiscal. Net profit for the company in the first half of the fiscal was up 85.8 per cent to Rs 139.3 crore (Rs 74.9 crore) while sales turnover grew 34.3 per cent to Rs 2,673.9 crore from Rs 1,990 crore.
— Agencies
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