New Delhi, November 15
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday said he has asked the Reserve Bank of india to finalize guidelines for new bank licenses and start accepting applications for the same pending passage of the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill.

“We have written to the RBI recently urging them to proceed to finalize the guidelines and proceed to receive applications for new banking licenses in anticipation of the amendment in the banking regulation act,” he told reporters after reviewing the performance of public sector banks.

According to the central bank’s draft norms released in August 2011, private sector entities or groups owned and controlled by Indian promoters, with diversified ownership, sound credentials and integrity, and having successful track record of at least ten years, would be eligible to promote banks.

“We have written to the Reserve Bank of India and hope it will pick up the thread and finalize the guidelines and start receiving the application,” Chidambaram stated.

The finance minister further said the “power or the authority” that the central bank wants is already available in the other provisions of the law and with the central bank’s own regulations and guidelines for new banking licenses.

“We are only formalizing them by amending the banking regulation act. And I have assured the RBI that banking regulation act will indeed be amended, hopefully in the winter session (of Parliament), if not in the winter session then in the budget session,” he added.

He further said if the RBI proceeds to receive application and process them, even then the first banking license is not likely to be issued in the next six or eight months.

“So by the time the license is issued, the banks come to existence and the banks begin to function, the banks regulation act would have been amended,” the minister said.

The draft norms have pegged the minimum required capital for promoting bank at Rs 500 crore and restrict foreign shareholding at 49 per cent for the first five years. — PTI

Brussels/Berlin, Nov 15
The debt crisis dragged the eurozone into its second recession since 2009 in the third quarter despite modest growth in Germany and France, data showed on Thursday.

The two leading economies both managed 0.2 percent growth in the July-to-September period. But the resilience could not save the austerity-hit 17-nation bloc from overall contraction as the likes of The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Austria shrank.

Economic output in the euro zone fell 0.1 percent in the quarter, following a 0.2-percent drop in the second quarter. Those two quarters of contraction put the eurozone's 9.4 trillion euros (US $12 trillion) economy in recession, although Italy and Spain have been contracting for a year already and Greece is suffering an outright depression.

A rebound in Europe is still far off. The debt crisis that began in Greece in late 2009 is still reverberating around the globe and holding back a lasting recovery from the Great Recession of 2008/2009 in much of the world. "That was the last good number Germany for the time being," said Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank. "The business climate ... has caved in."

Most economists expect Germany to contract in the fourth quarter for the first time since the end of 2011. Where Germany goes, France is likely to follow and economists expect its economy to shrink in the October-to-December period.

For all of 2012, the European Commission sees the eurozone contracting 0.4%, while growing just 0.1% in 2013. Business surveys point to difficult times ahead and the public's backlash to austerity polices is growing.

Millions of workers went on strike across Europe on Wednesday to protest the government spending cuts they say are driving the region into a deeper malaise but which Germany and the Commission say are crucial to healing the wounds of a decade-long, credit-fuelled boom. — Reuters

Mumbai, November 15
DLF Ltd, India's biggest property developer, expects to complete the sale of its Aman Resorts luxury hotel chain by the end of December as it works to sell non-core assets to reduce its Rs 232 billion worth of debt.

DLF has also received shareholder approval to sell its wind energy business and expects to complete that deal by the end of the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, it said in an analyst presentation on its website on Thursday.

"We expect to complete the sale of Aman Resorts in the next few weeks and the wind energy business in the next two to three months," a DLF spokesman separately told Reuters.

DLF, which recently sold a plot of land in Mumbai for about Rs 27 billion to developer Lodha Group as part of its asset divestment strategy, has been trying to sell Aman Resorts for more than a year.

The Aman Resorts assets for sale include 22 hotels in 12 countries, but not the property in New Delhi.

Sources had told Reuters in January the hotel deal had stalled due to lower-than-expected bids from shortlisted companies. DLF was expecting to sell Aman Resorts for at least US $400 million, the sources had said.

DLF is at an advanced stage of "negotiation and documentation" on the Aman Resorts transaction, the company presentation said.

The sale of Aman Resorts and wind energy business will help DLF achieve its target of reducing net debt to Rs 185 billion by March 31, the presentation added.

The company, which builds homes and offices mainly in its key market of north India, reported a 63 percent fall in net profit to Rs 1.39 billion for the July-September quarter compared with Rs 3.72 billion a year earlier.

Shares in DLF rose as much as 3.7 per cent Thursday to Rs 210.40, while the benchmark Mumbai market index was down 0.8 per cent. The stock is up more than 14% this year, but lags a 42 per cent rise in the BSE realty index. — Reuters

London, November 15
Global gold demand dropped 11 per cent in the three months to September from record levels seen in the same period last year, dampened mainly by fading Chinese fervour as its economy slowed, with stronger Indian demand stemming a larger fall, the World Gold Council said.

Chinese gold consumption fell 8 per cent in the July to September period to 176.8 tonnes, the WGC's quarterly demand trends report showed on Thursday, with both jewellery and investment demand hurt by a slowing economic growth.

Data last month showed China's economy slowed for a seventh straight quarter in the July to September period. Chinese bar and coin investment dropped 12% to 53 tonnes, while jewellery buying fell 5% to 123.8 tonnes.

"The fall in Chinese demand coincides with weaker economic numbers in China in Q3," the WGC's managing director of investment research Marcus Grubb said. "There is some evidence that the economic situation is stabilising in China and recovery is starting... it's possible that the stimulus measures have worked and the economy has bottomed out."

"If that's true, we won't see a repeat of this Chinese weakness in the fourth quarter," he said.

China is second to India as the world's biggest gold consumer. Indian demand rose in the last quarter by 9% to 223.1 tonnes, reversing the trend of the previous three quarters, with pent-up consumer demand lifting the market.

First-half buying was dented by jewellers' strikes, a hike in import duty and a dearth of auspicious days for weddings. "Finally we're starting to see the Indian market come back," Grubb said. "And the anecdotal evidence is good looking forward to fourth quarter demand — premiums are high again in the Mumbai market, and the strength of the rupee has meant you have seen rupee prices moderate somewhat."

India's consumer gold demand remains down 24% in the first three-quarters of the year, however, and is unlikely to record a net increase in 2012 as a whole, the WGC said.

JEWELLERY, BAR DEMAND ABATES: Global jewellery consumption dipped 2% to 448.8 tonnes, while coins and bar demand fell 30%. European investors, particularly in German-speaking markets, accounted for half of the 128.1-tonne decrease in bar and coin demand.

"European investment is lower than it's been for some time in the retail market. You're not seeing that insurance demand and safe asset demand from Germany and Switzerland that we were seeing last year," Grubb said.

Coin and bar demand also fell by 52% in the US to 10.5 tonnes, and by 66% in Turkey to 7.9 tonnes. — Reuters

New Delhi, November 15
Upstream oil regulator DGH has given nod to Reliance Industries Ltd to drill a well as part of the US $1.529 billion plan to develop four satellite gas fields around the now flagging main fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block.

The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons on November 2 wrote to the joint secretary (exploration) in the petroleum & natural gas ministry that one development well KG-D6-G2 in the Dhirubhai-19 or D-19 field may be agreed.

D-19 is one of the four satellite gas field whose optimized field development plan (OFDP) was approved in January this year, the DGH wrote.

"Approved OFDP envisaged eight development gas wells with a peak gas production level of 10.30 million standard cubic meters per day," it said.

RIL has till date made 18 gas and one oil find in the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block in the Bay of Bengal. Of these, Dhirubhai-1 and 3, the largest of the 18 gas finds, were put on production in April 2009 while MA oil field came into production in September 2008.

The D1&D3 fields have seen output drop from 55 mmscmd peak in August 2010 to 20.06 mmscmd this month as water and sand seaped into wells. — PTI