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India gears up for deadlock at WTO
Assocham wants vanaspati imports in negative list
Mercer inks HR pact with Patni
Suzuki scooters on cards
Roadstar launched in north India
Trouble brews for Ranbaxy UK
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Zydus accepts Aerocid offer
Indoco Remedies
Reddy meets Chidambaram
Kapil Dev launches Rhino in Haryana
Prasar Bharati revenues swell
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India gears up for deadlock at WTO
New Delhi, April 5 Mr Lamy, who is currently on a visit to India, today held discussions with Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath and industrial chambers, and tried to impress upon them to adopt a flexible approach on industrial tariffs. He said India would have to “bite into some of its applied non-agricultural tariffs” in the course of current NAMA negotiations at the WTO. This is necessary, Mr Lamy said, for India to capitalise on its “offensive strategy” of making the developed countries, particularly the US and EU, reduce their tariff peaks and tariff escalations. He faced strong criticism from farmers and civil society leaders, who held protests under the banner of the ‘Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan’ at a meeting organised jointly by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and UNCTAD early in the morning. Later, he held a closed-door meeting with industry representatives. In his discussion with Mr Lamy, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath made it clear that “while timelines or deadlines are important, this cannot be at the cost of the development content of the Doha Round which was launched with the aim of reducing global trade imbalances in favour of developing countries”. The discussions focussed on issues relating to agriculture and non-agricultural market access in the context of the April 30 deadline. Mr. Lamy pointed out that India had both defensive and offensive interests in the three key areas of negotiations — agriculture, industrial tariffs and services. In agriculture, the removal of trade distorting subsidies was an important issue for India while in non-agricultural market access also, India had strong offensive interests since the negotiations were aimed at addressing the issues of tariff peaks and tariff escalations against products of export interest to developing countries. India, therefore, had a large stake in the ongoing negotiations, he pointed out. Addressing business leaders later at a meeting organized by FICCI, Mr Lamy said that the average bound industrial tariff for India was 40 per cent while its average applied tariff was in the range of 20 per cent. On the issue of services, Mr. Lamy said, India had adopted an offensive posture. In areas where it had a comparative advantage, it had been able to make the rich countries agree to open its markets under MODE 4 for easy movement of professionals. “I believe that to successfully wrest this concession from the developed world, India would have to pay by further opening up its services sector”. Overall, he said, India was switching to a more offensive strategy in trade negotiations, a strategy that would help it redress some of the bias against the developed world. He advised Indian business to “stay alert, stay involved, look at all scenarios and lobby hard. This will help speed the negotiations” and bring them to a successful conclusion.
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Assocham wants vanaspati imports in negative list
New Delhi, April 5 In an SOS sent to the Department of Commerce, Ministry Of Commerce and Industry, Assocham has pointed out that India’s bilateral treaties with neighbouring countries, particularly those with Nepal and Sri Lanka in 2002, have relaxed vanaspati imports restrictions to the extent that their vanaspati exports to India have been selling Rs 75 to Rs 80 per 15 kg tin below in the domestic market. This has put immense pressure on the Indian vanaspati manufacturers as these have not been able to sell their produce. As a result, their stocks of vanaspati have been piling up as the total vanaspati exports from Nepal and Sri Lanka have risen to over 4 lakh tonnes towards the end of 2005-06, feels the chamber. The industrial chamber added that if it was not possible to immediately put vanaspati imports in India’s negative list, the government should consider tightening the value-addition clause which was 50 per cent in 1996 and subsequently watered down to 30 per cent in 2002 with the element of profit included in the value- addition norm. Assocham feels that imported vanaspati should conform to Indian standards as it is imperative to make all statutory rules and regulations pertaining to oils and quality mandatory for Nepalese and Sri Lankan vanaspati. It has demanded that it should be made mandatory for Nepalese and Sri Lankan vanaspati units to purchase 12 per cent of oils from India as is applicable to Indian vanaspati industry. This move will help Indian farmers sustain their agriculture.
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Mercer inks HR pact with Patni
New Delhi, April 5 “HR outsourcing is one of the fastest growing categories globally and Mercer’s planned expenditure of $50 million in the new global operations centre reflects its commitment to leverage global resources and maximising growth opportunities in this category,” Mercer HR services President Jeff Miller said here. As per the agreement, the operations centre would be managed by Patni for two years. Patni is the country’s sixth largest software exporter with revenue of over $450 million in 2005. “After two years Mercer will have the option to acquire the centre. Which we expect we would,” Mr Miller said. Currently, Patni has 70 dedicated people working on Mercer’s outsourcing business and this would grow to 200 by the end of this year. “By the end of 2007 the number of persons would go up to 800,” Mr Miller said, adding by the end of three years it may touch 1,500. Mercer, which provides HR outsourcing and consulting services to customers around the world, already has 100 persons in India that are in HR consulting. Meanwhile, India’s sixth largest software exporter Patni Computer Systems has said it was actively scouting for acquisitions. The software company expects to raise headcount by 4,000 this year to drive its growth. “We would like to acquire companies whose revenues are roughly 10 per cent of Patni revenues. We would like to acquire companies with revenues of $45 to $50 million,” Patni Executive Vice-President Mrinal Sattawala told reporters. — PTI
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Suzuki scooters on cards
Mr Khosla was in the city to inaugurate a new dealership for Suzuki Motorcycles here today. He said in the first phase as many as 70 dealerships across the country would be opened this year. He said that the company hoped to capture a sizeable chunk of the two-wheeler market during this fiscal, mainly because of the growth in automobile sector. He pointed out that the number of two-wheelers in the country were expected to grow up to 8 million in another three years. “We have set up our manufacturing unit near Manesar with an investment of Rs 200 crore.
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Roadstar launched in north India
Hisar, April 5 Announcing the launch at a news conference organised here today, Mr Atul Akolkar, Head, Sales and Marketing, said here today that while the dealers for western and southern parts of the country had been finalised, dealers in the northern and eastern parts were now being appointed. The company has now focused on three-core business on automobiles, machine tools and auto-component engineering, he added. Mr Akolkar disclosed that the company had entered a tie-up with the State Bank of India. Roadstar LCV, the company claims, will give a mileage of nearly 17 km per litre. Its ex-showroom price at Pune has been kept at Rs 3.5 lakh, while it is expected to cost Rs 3.6 lakh at Hisar.
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Trouble brews for Ranbaxy UK
London, April 5 The five companies are Kent Pharmaceuticals, Norton Healthcare, Generics UK, Ranbaxy UK and Goldshield Group Plc, which is listed on the London stock exchange. Eight of the nine individuals work or used to work for the five companies. The ninth used to work for Regent-GM Laboratories, now in liquidation, the SFO said in a statement. “This important case involving an allegation of dishonest price fixing by companies is likely to have a significant impact upon the business culture of this country,” said the SFO’s Philip Lewis, who is heading the investigation. Goldshield said that neither it nor its two directors named in the investigation had acted illegally or improperly. Ranbaxy UK, a unit of India’s drug maker, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, said it was unaware of “any wrongdoing”. “Ranbaxy (UK) Limited has not yet been informed of the substance of the allegations against it nor the evidence upon which they are based and is, therefore, not in a position to comment. The company is not aware of any wrongdoing,” the company said in a statement issued from New Delhi. The SFO said it suspected the firms and men of trying to fix prices and supplies of warfarin, a blood-thinning drug, the branded drug Marevan and penicillin-based antibiotics between 1996 and 2000. It said it would press charges within the next three days and expected the suspects to appear at Bow Street Magistrates’ court in London on April 27.
— Reuters, PTI
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Zydus accepts Aerocid offer
Mumbai, April 5 The 29 branded products, a combination of mature prescription and OTC products, were originally acquired from French major Alpharma in 2003 for a consideration of Euro 3.7 million.
— UNI
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New Delhi, April 5 The RBI chief also reviewed with the Finance Minister the ongoing nationwide strike by the State Bank of India employees. The SBI employees are on indefinite strike demanding increased in pension and other benefits. While Mr Reddy did not speak to reporters, he is understood to have discussed with the Finance Minister the measures the RBI has taken to ease the liquidity position. The RBI Credit Policy will be released on April 18, 2006, in Mumbai where Mr Reddy will address the Chairmen of all banks and outline the steps that the central bank would unveil. Mr Chidambaram has already held a meeting with the bank chiefs who informed the Finance Minister the challenges being faced by them since there is a big mismatch between the growth of non-food bank credit and deposits. While the deposits last fiscal grew by about 16 per cent, the demand for credit went up by as much as 28 per cent. The RBI has since taken a few steps for injecting the additional liquidity. These included increase in the interest rates on the deposits from the Non-Resident Indians. The central bank has also been pumping in more cash in the system through the market intervention. — UNI
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Kapil Dev launches Rhino in Haryana
Karnal, April 5 The keys of the car were presented to Kapil Dev in a glittering ceremony, who also inaugurated the company’s first showroom in Haryana. Rhino, which was launched in the country in January, is being manufactured at Amb (Una) in Himachal Pradesh, which is a tax-free zone. The cost benefit is being directly passed on to customers in the form of economic pricing and value-added features. The vehicle is Rs 1 lakh cheaper than its competitors in the similar category. Mr L.D. Mittal, Chairman, ICML, said Rhino had been conceptualised and engineered in technical collaboration with England’s famous company MG Rover. Having a mileage of 17 KMPL in testing conditions, it is a boon for joint, extended families. — UNI
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Prasar Bharati revenues swell
New Delhi, April 5 Prasar Bharati CEO K.S. Sarma told reporters here that enthused by the success, the public broadcaster — which has an annual expenditure between Rs 1,700 and 1,800 crore — was eyeing Rs 1,500 crore through revenues this fiscal. “We will work towards it and on the back of existing and new initiatives, are hopeful to achieve it,” Mr Sarma said, outlining Prasar Bharati’s future strategy. Doordarshan also announced that it has partnered private mobile applications developer ACL Wireless to launch SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based interactive services. HMT sales growth State-owned HMT Limited today reported a consolidated sales growth of 9 per cent at Rs 541 crore for the year ended March 31. Production during the year grew by 18 per cent at Rs 528 crore for the year ended March 31, a company spokesperson said here. He said the company’s tractor business achieved a net profit of Rs 12.74 crore with production and sales achieving a combined growth of 26 per cent.
— Agencies
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BSE, NSE closed today
Mumbai, April 5 However, trading in spot and future bullion and future oilseed markets will remain open as usual, traders said.—UNI
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Goodyear to shut UK plant RPL price band EDS offer NHAI order Sasken buyout Virgin nod CII (North) office-bearers PACL’s record production Concast plant operational |
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New Delhi, April 5
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