The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	WTO chief optimistic on Doha round conclusion Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 3, 2009 Successful completion of the Doha round of trade talks would be an effective step in resolving the ongoing global economic crisis and curbing protectionism, observed WTO director general Pascal Lamy. “Many countries had raised trade barriers — most of them legal under WTO rules — to counter the slowdown”, he told members of apex chamber FICCI today before a meeting of trade ministers of various countries. “The ministers are trying to work out how they intend to bring the Doha Round to completion next year”, he added. “Given the kind of deadline (2010) that we have to complete the talks...and given what’s happening and not happening in the Geneva kitchen, we need a stronger linkage between what the dining room says and what the kitchen does”, he remarked. The WTO chief is banking on the Delhi talks, where several top trade ministers are meeting, to move the stalled Doha-round trade negotiations and meet the 2010 timeline. “The meeting can be the real beginning of the end-game of the round. It is an opportunity to map out how to bring the Doha round to an end in 201”, he said. "This discussion will be our focus," Lamy said during a talk on WTO and Doha Negotiations here today. Lamy envisioned the emergence of a new “triangle of global governance, a triangle of coherence” in a world challenged by climate change, financial, job and food security crises. “On one side of the triangle lies the G20, providing global political leadership and direction, and on another side lie member-driven international organisations providing expertise and specialised inputs — whether rules, policies or programmes — such as the WTO. The third side of the triangle is the G-192, the United Nations, providing a universal forum for accountability,” he said. The WTO chief said delivering a deal on climate change was another daunting challenge facing the international community this year. “Mitigating global warming and adapting to its consequences will require major economic investment and, above all, unequivocal determination on the part of policy makers”, he asserted. The WTO, Lamy said, had been closely monitoring trade policy developments. “We’ve seen an increase in restrictive trade measures since the onset of the global financial crisis. There is no room for complacency. While I don’t think we’re in a situation where we need to cry wolf, we need to remain vigilant and ensure that WTO members remain open with one another”, he declared.
	Vital for strengthening world trade, says Anand Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 3 The two-day trade ministerial meeting titled “Re-energising Doha : A commitment to development” started with 39 trade ministers here today. While inaugurating the meeting, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said concluding the Doha round of negotiations was vital for strengthening the world trade. “The Delhi meeting will not negotiate specific issues but tackle the mismatch between words and action,” he stated. “Lets be frank in acknowledging that even the unequivocal expression of political resolve has not yet been translated into action. Many of you have shared your concerns with me over the imperceptible progress in re-energising the negotiations,” he told ministers. The meeting is being attended by the ministers from the US, European Commission, Brazil, South Africa and China among others. India, under the leadership of former trade minister Kamal Nath, along with Brazil and South Africa had protested opening up of agriculture sector in the Doha Round last July which had led to the breakdown of trade negotiations. Sharma said the trade ministers had no doubt reaffirmed their commitment to the current round of trade talks ever since it was launched at the Qatari capital in November 2001. Meetings have since been held in Washington, London, Bali, Paris, L'Aquila and Singapore. “Together, we need to work in this spirit, go beyond yet another reaffirmation and work collectively to provide guidance for a clear road map of multilateral engagement in the months ahead, remaining conscious of the 2010 timeline,” he said. Earlier, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar had categorically stated India’s position in the trade rounds, saying that food and livelihood security of the poor was critical to the developing countries and could not be compromised under any circumstances.
	Farmers protest against opening up of agri sector Bhagyashree Pande Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 3 As the trade talk proceeded in the Capital, nearly 1 lakh farmers from all over the country gathered on the Parliament street (5-km) away from the venue to protest against India opening its agriculture sector. The major issue raised by farmers’ body is that WTO proposal would severely dilute provisions to protect country’s agriculture. The farmers were arrested and later released. It would drastically limit the number of crops that can be exempted from tariff reductions and propose a highly ineffective mechanism to prevent import surges. There were nearly 71 persons from several unions like Federation of Union Territory Chandigarh Employees, Jammu and Kashmir Trade Council, CTU Punjab & Chandigarh general workers union amongst others. Nearly 170 NGOs also participated protesting against the talks. Talking to The Tribune, one of the protesters, Uday Singh from Ferozepur rued that they had been cheated as the Bt cotton seeds that were provided by Markfed were expensive but were fake and did not yield any crop. Questioning on the authenticity of goods Uday asserted: What will happen if the trade opens up? Bacchi Singh from Jalandhar said the diesel prices have gone up considerably and there is no electricity also. Thus there is no water in the canals to plough fields, he added.
	Direct tax kitty grows meagre 4 per cent New Delhi, September 3 Direct tax collections by the government for the first five months of the current fiscal grew to Rs 87,888 crore, a meagre 4.12 per cent growth which is attributed tax refunds paid during the period. The direct tax mop-up in August was Rs 13,898 crore against Rs 12,761 crore in the same month last year, a statement by the Central Board of Direct Taxes said today. "Lower growth in net collection was mainly on account of higher tax refund outgo of 52.61 per cent at Rs 24,639 crore against Rs 16,145 crore last fiscal," it said. Corporate taxes grew by 1.84 per cent to Rs 49,339 crore in April-August compared to Rs 48,450 crore in the same period last year. Personal income tax (including STT, and residual FBT and BCTT) grew at 7.40 per cent Rs 38,491 crore against Rs 35,840 crore. Securities Transaction Tax (STT) collection - a tax levied on trading of securities on the stock exchanges was higher by 7.13 per cent at Rs 2,924 crore as compared to Rs 2,730 crore during April-August this year. The government for the current fiscal has raised the target for direct tax collections to Rs 4 lakh crore from Rs 3.7 lakh crore announced in the Budget for 2009-10. — PTI
	Inflation rises to (-) 0.21 pc New Delhi, September 3 Rising prices of food items like pulses, sugar and vegetables pushed up inflation to minus 0.21 per cent for the week ended August 22, a rise of 74 basis points over the previous week. Though inflation remained negative for the 12th week in a row since the week ending June 6, experts say it's only a matter of time before the wholesale price-based inflation turns positive owing to unrelenting rise in food prices. Inflation for the previous week was minus 0.95 per cent and it stood at 12.76 per cent in the corresponding week last year. The build up of inflation in the current financial year so far is 5.29 per cent. Sugar price rose by 7 per cent during the week that ended on August 22. Similarly, fruits and vegetables became costly by 4 per cent, jowar, urad and bajra by 3 per cent each, and maize and arhar by 2 per cent each. "It (rise in inflation) is a major jump. The market was expecting it to be minus 0.87 per cent. Prices of agricultural products in general and food in particular shot up over the week," HDFC Bank chief economist Abheek Barua said.— PTI
	Tracing Black Money Switzerland seeks ‘concrete’ info from India New Delhi, September 3 Switzerland today said it will look into India's request for tracing black money stashed in tax havens in that country if “concrete information” is provided by New Delhi in specific cases. “We follow international norms. If you have concrete information like name of the bank and other specific details, then there should be no problem,” vice-president of Switzerland Doris Leuthard told PTI here. Leuthard, who is also minister of economic affairs, said India will have to apply through legal procedures based on the existing double taxation avoidance treaty which was signed in 1995. Leuthard, who is here to participate in talks on WTO ministerial meeting, said the secrecy shield was created by the Swiss banks to protect their interests from other regimes in Europe. The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) last month had said India is not welcome there on a name-fishing expedition. Following the SBA's comments, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said, “New Delhi was not interested in any fishing expedition of details of money stashed with them but will work on specific cases.” Asked why Switzerland is not entertaining India's request when it has already given account details of a large number people to the US government, Leuthard said there had been specific requests from Washington on which information was given. Last month, the US reached an agreement with Switzerland under which top Swiss bank UBS AG turned over details of 4,450 secret accounts to the Internal Revenue Service. — PTI
	Amway to augment capacity at Baddi Tribune News Service Shimla, September 3 Having used its innovative business model to combat successfully the impact of global economic meltdown and post a growth of 40 per cent in the last fiscal, Amway India Enterprises, a direct selling FMCG Company, aims to more than double its sales turnover to Rs 2,500 crore over the next three years. Stating this at a press conference here today, managing director of the company William S. Pinckney said despite the slowdown, the turnover shot up to Rs 1,128 crore from Rs 800 crore in the preceding year. The company introduced a range of door-opening products called “great value products” keeping in view the price- conscious middle class in the country and broke the Rs 1,000 crore barrier. Its strategy to lower the entry level for business reduced the price of the kit from Rs 4,400 to Rs 995 enabling more people to join hand with the company to ensure impressive growth in an adverse market scenario. The target of Rs 2,500 crore by 2012 was achievable with a growth rate of 25 per cent. The company was offering 110 products in various categories, namely personal care, home care, nutrition and wellness, cosmetics and great value products. Almost 85 per cent of the products sold by Amway India were now manufactured within the country through seven third party contract manufacturers. It was increasing its production capacities at its vendor plant at Baddi by three times under the Rs 55 crore expansion plan which will take total investment to Rs 105 crore. Four new lines will be added to the existing five lines, for manufacturing a key range of products, nutrition and wellness. The company had acquired a new office in Shimla, which was almost three times the size of the earlier with facility for providing training to distributors. Besides, it also had an office at Dharamsala and home delivers products to 45 towns in the state. There are 15,300 Amway distributors who were selling products worth Rs 68 lakh per month in the current year compared to Rs 53 lakh per month last year. It paid Rs 2 crore to the state exchequer as tax over the past three years. Over 50 per cent of Amway’s business comes from the sale of dietary supplements.
	Ministerial panel for exporters soon Neeraj Bagga Tribune News Service Amritsar, September 3 The Dr Manmohan Singh-led UPA government would soon constitute an inter-ministerial committee to look into grievances of exporters and to enhance cooperation with state governments, Director General of Foreign Trade RS Gujral said yesterday . Addressing an open house meet jointly held by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) and the Engineering Export Promotion Council of India, Gujral said the committee in order to ensure proper coordination would get the state governments on board in the next meeting of the National Development Council. More stress is being laid on integration of various departments involved in handling export by linking them through computers. It would link all branches of exports including airports, seaports, both government and private banks, customs and even DGFT through e-trade project. The incentive scheme would be made online soon, he added. With a view to simplify incentive rates, they had been rationalised from eight categories of rates to four ranging from 2, 3, 5 and 7, he said . He informed that seven towns of export excellence had been selected for three product groups and endeavour would be made to improve the export infrastructure in these towns. He said formulation of the foreign trade policy (FTP) this time was a challenging task, especially with the country’s exports contracting since October last owing to global meltdown. Commenting on recssion, Gujral said nobody could say with conviction that the recession was over and added that no doubt some demand got generated recently but felt that it would take at least eight to 12 months for the markets to return to their old glory. The CII Punjab also apprised him of some of the issues which hamper export from the border state like goods from outside Punjab are not permitted to come here under bond where as they can go out easily.
	Gold surges to Rs 15,700 New Delhi, September 3 Gold prices today surged to a seven-month high to Rs 15,700 per 10 gram, close to its record high levels in February. The precious metal spurted by Rs 270 at Rs 15,700 per 10 gram, a level last seen on February 18, just Rs 50 less than the record level seen on the next day. Traders said, the market witnessed strong demand from jewellery makers and stockists, who had been making purchases to meet demand in the ensuing marriage season. “We have plenty of orders for jewellery in hand and have to purchase it before the fortnight of Sharads begin,” said Delhi-based jeweller Rakesh Anand. Demand would once again pickup around festivals such as Diwali in September and October, when people traditionally like to make fresh purchases of gold, Anand said. — PTI