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Chidambaram carefully watching Sensex
India set to become global R&D hub, says Kamal Nath
Boeing to select repair location by June
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BSNL to erect 2,000 towers in Punjab circle
Ludhiana, Faridabad machine tool units plan joint strategy
Arcelor may forge alliance to resist Mittal bid
PNB to open trade finance branch in Punjab
India to sign FTAs with Bimstec nations
IRDA cautions insurers
Pak to import sugar from India
Corporate News
Venus Remedies buys German firm
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Chidambaram carefully watching Sensex
New Delhi, January 31 Releasing the revised GDP growth figures for the year 2004-05, Mr Chidambaram said while the Reserve Bank of India had changed the risk weightage to some particular sectors like housing, he did not see “any asset-bubble building over”. While the provisional estimates had placed the GDP growth at 6.9 per cent in 2004-05, the revised figures have put it at 7.5 per cent in the first year of the UPA Government. “The 7.5 per cent GDP growth came over a high base of eight per cent,” the Finance Minister said. He was happy to note the improvement in other macro-economic figures like the gross domestic savings improving to 29.1 per cent of GDP from 28 per cent of the GDP. The gross capital formation went up to 30.1 per cent against 27.2 per cent of the GDP at current prices. Mr Chidambaram said the rising crude oil prices remains a worrying area even though the government cannot pass through the impact on the consumers. “It is a problem but we have an obligation to maintain the price stability,” he said, adding that the shadow of oil prices continue to hang over the economy. “Things do not seem to be improving,” he said. However, the Finance Minister complimented RBI Governor Y.V. Reddy for taking steps to maintain the inflation rate, which he said, would remain below the 5 to 5.5 per cent mark, as estimated by the Central bank. He said the RBI Governor would ensure “ample liquidity” in the banking system. He said the liquidity squeeze was only a temporary phase and the RBI has many tools like MSS and CRR to handle the liquidity issue. In a separate development, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said that the final guidelines for securitisation of standard assets will be released on Thursday. “The final guidelines on securitisation will be released by RBI on Thursday,” RBI Deputy Governor V Leeladhar told reporters here on the sidelines of a seminar organised by Indian Merchants’ Chamber. The apex bank in April, 2005, had issued a set of draft guidelines governing the securitisation of standard assets. It was put in place on its website for comments. Asked whether there were major changes, Mr Leeladhar said: “A lot of useful suggestions have come from the market participants.” Asked whether the apex bank would put the banks involved in the recent IPO scam under its scanner, he said this was going to be an on-going process and if irregularities come up further, RBI would look into that. Last week, RBI had booked seven errant commercial banks including Bharat Overseas Bank Ltd, Citi Bank, HDFC Bank Ltd for breaching prudent banking practices and facilitating misuse of Initial Public Offer (IPO) finance to ineligible borrowers. It will also shortly issue new guidelines relating to product development, consolidation and legislative measures for deepening the domestic debt markets and improving the role of primary dealers (PDs) in market-making and price discovery process.
— Agencies
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India set to become global R&D hub, says Kamal Nath
London, January 31 “Today, we are immensely proud to be the ‘default choice’ as world’s back office. India, at the same time, is rapidly ascending the knowledge chain. We are no longer a base only for low-end processes and operations,” Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said here. Making a strong pitch to business leaders from Commonwealth, Mr Nath said: “The unique combination of IT, biotech and a strong pharma and bulk chemical manufacturing base means that high-end R&D in sectors like pharmaceutical research, avionics can put India on the global knowledge map as a vibrant source of intellectual capital for the world.” The new paradigm is that of a “credible India” with a six-decade old credible democracy, rule of law, an independent judiciary and free press and an economy witnessing a sustained growth of 7 to 8 per cent year after year, Mr Nath said addressing a meeting of Commonwealth Business Council. India’s ‘Look East’ policy had contributed hugely to the new paradigm with Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore accelerating investments from there. “Free Trade Agreements with countries as diverse as Sri Lanka and Chile, Thailand and Mauritius, and with the Mercosur countries of Latin America and the South Africa Customs Union (SACU) countries were all part of a trend towards forging stronger relationships and maximising economic opportunities from some of the world’s most dynamic economies,” he said. Seeking a stronger economic relationship between India and the Commonwealth countries in general and Britain in particular, he said the country was on its way towards making a transition as scores of Indian companies emerged as global players. “Last year, for instance, Indian companies paid almost $2 billion— five times the amount for all of 2001 — to acquire 62 overseas companies,” he said, adding, “Indian firms are actually becoming global and if the trend continues, we will have a host of home-grown multinational companies operating all around the world.”
— PTI
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Boeing to select repair location by June
Mumbai, January 31 The aircraft giant has short-listed sites from six states for its MRO facility. “We have received proposals from six Indian states for setting up the MRO facility. This will be finalised by June,” Boeing Commercial Airplanes Senior Vice-President (Sales) Dinesh A. Keskar told reporters here today. The Boeing team is evaluating capabilities of six locations from the states including Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, and West Bengal. The US aerospace firm had announced earlier this month that it would invest $100 million to set up a MRO facility as part of its Rs 35,000 crore aircraft deal with the national carrier
Air-India. — PTI
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BSNL to erect 2,000 towers in Punjab circle
Chandigarh, January 31 Officials in the Punjab circle of BSNL informed TNS that they have introduced competitive pricing, just like other cellular operators in the region. After having launched the ‘free incoming for life scheme’ for prepaid subscribers to match similar offers by private operators, BSNL has now come up with two other tariff plans for post-paid subscribers, wherein mobile phone call to BSNL subscriber would be 50 paise per minute and another in which an outgoing call within the network is for 4 paise per minute. “We are also going to set up 2,000 new towers for better connectivity. A majority of these towers will be set up in the semi- urban and rural areas, so as to strengthen the network here,” said a top official of BSNL. He added that since the telecom company’s subscriber strength was based in these areas, there was more emphasis on improving infrastructure here. All these steps have been initiated after BSNL continued to slip on its subscriber base in the Punjab circle. Though BSNL has the second largest subscriber base in the country, it has been losing its subscribers to private telecom players like Bharti, Spice and Hutch in the Punjab circle. According to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the subscriber base of BSNL dropped by 52,000 (from 4.38 lakh to 3. 86 lakh) in five months — between July to December 2005. In fact, Punjab is the only circle (in B category) where BSNL has been unable to hold on to its subscriber base. Though the telecom major is doing well in the other B circles like Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh yet it has the lowest number of subscribers in Punjab. This despite the fact that Punjab has the highest teledensity in the country. BSNL has also introduced competitive pricing for its broadband service. “Though we have the largest share in broadband in Punjab circle, we have yielded to competition by introducing sops like no rental for two months if anyone subscribed Data One in January. Similar offers would be launched later also to attract more subscribers,” said a top marketing official of BSNL.
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Ludhiana, Faridabad machine tool units plan joint strategy
New Delhi, January 31 “Since there are large number of machine tool units in North India in Ludhiana, Ghaziabad and Faridabad with considerable capacity to manufacture different types of machine tools, we propose to set up a joint cluster of these three units to tap the domestic and international market,” Mr C.P. Rangachar, President, IMTA, told The Tribune. The objective of the joint strategy was to share best practices, cost sharing and joint marketing of the products.“The initiative has been successful in Bangalore and Pune,” he said. This would help small and medium family ventures in these towns to scale up their production, besides modernising the units. Mr Rangachar said after facing a slump for some years the machine tool industry was expecting steep growth of 35 per cent annually over the next two years from the present level of about Rs 2,000 crore. Concerned over the rising import of second-hand tools in the country, the association has called upon the government to take a policy decision in the coming Budget on this issue. “If second-hand cars are not allowed to be imported, how can the government allow second-hand tools in the country sold at one-tenth of the original price. We demand that the government should either fully ban second-hand machine tools or raise import duty on them so that they should be priced at minimum 60 per cent of the price of new instruments,” he said. The industry is holding a five-day exhibition from February 1-5 at New Delhi to showcase new products and achievements of the industry. Over 200 companies from across the country and Korea, Japan, Germany, Spain,
Taiwan, the UK, the USA, Australia and Italy are participating in the exhibition. He said the government should set up a special fund to promote R&D in this important sector that was catering to the auto, agriculture, textile, railways, defence and other manufacturing sectors.
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Arcelor may forge alliance to resist Mittal bid
Paris, January 31 He reiterated that Arcelor held 4 per cent of its own shares and had “the right to take it to 10 per cent” to defend itself against the $ 22.7-billion bid from Mittal Steel. Luxembourg: Lakshmi Mittal said he held constructive talks on Tuesday with Luxembourg’s Prime Minister on the second leg of a tour to win support for his bid for Arcelor. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker’s Government had voiced concerns about the bid ahead of the visit. With a local staff strength of around 7,500, Arcelor is the largest private employer in Luxembourg, whose state is its single largest shareholder with a stake of 5.62 per cent.
— AFP, Reuters
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PNB to open trade finance branch in Punjab
Ludhiana, January 31 The trade finance branch will take care of several requirements of traders relating to their trading activities on priority basis, PNB General Manager, Punjab (South) I.D. Singh said here. The bank will target those traders whose turnover range between Rs 5 and 6 crore while their loan requirements are close to Rs 10 lakh. “We want to focus on those traders who have loan requirement of at least Rs 10 lakh irrespective of the nature of their trading activity”, said Mr I.D. Singh. PNB will cater to several traders including retailers, wholesalers, agencies, fair price shops, large retail chains, super markets, department stores, dealers appointed by manufacturing companies, Cooperative stores, and fertiliser distributors through this specialized branch, he said.
— PTI
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India to sign FTAs with Bimstec nations
New Delhi, January 31 India has already signed FTAs with two members of Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) — Sri Lanka and Thailand — comprising of seven countries in the region. However, FTA with Thailand still remains to be fully operationalised.
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IRDA cautions insurers
New Delhi, January 31 The keyman insurance cover can be sold only through term assurance which combines life, accident and disability insurance policies to protect business of a company from the death or disablement of a key employee. “All insurers are advised strictly to ensure that where the premium for the insurance on the life of an employee is paid by the employer or where the premium on the life of a partner is paid by another partner or by the partnership firm, the scope of cover is not wider than term assurance,” IRDA said in a circular to all insurers. Insurers will have to abide by these instructions in letter and in spirit, the regulator said.
— PTI
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Pak to import sugar from India
Islamabad, January 31 The decision was taken at a high-level meeting, chaired by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Salman Shah to review the current sugar situation in the country here yesterday. The meeting also decided to ask Pakistan Railways to allocate some wagons for the import of sugar from India.
— UNI
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Gold touches Rs 8,150 Traders oppose FDI in retail CPI-IW at 550 COAI chief Interim dividend Lloyd Electric ING Vysya |
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