New Delhi, May 10
India's car market is enduring its worst sales decline in history after sales in April fell for a sixth straight month, according to an industry body, as economic gloom and rising ownership costs savage a once much-vaunted growth market.

High interest rates, rising fuel costs and the dark clouds hanging over India's economy have all slashed demand for cars in a market where ownership levels lag Asian rival China and global automakers have made big bets with hopes of booming growth.

According to data released by industry lobby group Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) on Friday, domestic car sales slumped by 10.43% to 150,789 units in April this year compared to 168,354 units in April 2012.

This is the sixth straight month that car sales have declined, which SIAM said was the longest stretch since it started collating data in 1997-1998.

Hit by weak consumer sentiments, high interest costs and other macroeconomic factors, the total sale of vehicles across categories registered a decline of 0.34% to 1,467,492 units in April 2013 against 1,472,452 units in the same month of 2012, SIAM said.

Talking to reporters, SIAM deputy director General Sugato Sen said: "Weak consumer sentiment is affecting car sales. The budget hasn't done anything to improve market sentiment. This is the sixth month that we’re witnessing a fall in car sales".

“We have never witnessed such a long consecutive decline in car sales since data has been analyzed by SIAM from 1997-98," he added.

New Delhi, May 10
The government has cleared a new aviation policy aimed at creating international and regional aviation hubs in the country. It also approved the constitution of an interministerial committee led by the civil aviation secretary for suggesting various measures to overcome bottlenecks in the development of aviation hubs at various airports in India.

In the past decade, India has witnessed a traffic growth rate of about 15 to 18%, which is likely to continue in future also and according to the officials, the policy, approved by the cabinet on Thursday, comes with the focus on tackling increased air traffic in the coming years.

The six metros with state-of-the-art airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata — have been modernized and expanded but the government came across a number of bottlenecks that needed immediate attention and rectification, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said. He added development of these airports as aviation hubs would boost the growth of airlines and airports and would increase the flow of tourists to India.

Among other things, the new policy will endeavour to liberalize visa norms; study the ATF (aviation turbine fuel) price and taxation issues; focus on seeking removal of service charges on air travel in order to make it more attractive to passengers and thus improve prospects for the airline industry; set up domestic regional hubs to cater to the growing air traffic from non-metro destinations in remote areas including the northeast; and focus on building and modernizing airports in tier-II and tier-III cities. 

New Delhi, May 10
The Group of Ministers on public sector undertakings, which would have taken a look at reviving six sick firms including the state-run telecom operators BSNL and MTNL, cancelled the meeting sheduled for Friday as Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, who heads it was not available.

Sources in the government said Chidambaram apparently had to travel to Chennai on urgent work, so the meeting had to be cancelled. The date for the next meeting has not been decided as of now.

The meeting today was of importance as the strategy for the revival of the two state-run telecom operators would have been discussed with the departmentof telecommunications (DoT) having prepared a detailed note on the financial health of both BSNL and MTNL.

BSNL’s losses are expected to be about Rs 8,198 crore, and that of MTNL is likely to be around Rs 3,335 crore for fiscal 2012-13.

London, May 10
Silver prices swung wildly in the wake of extreme losses seen in gold last month, but while investors fled bullion-backed funds in droves, holdings in the less glamorous precious metal are remarkably robust, for now.

Silver carries the precious and industrial metal tag due to uses in jewellery and manufacturing, but its fundamental picture is far from rosy.

The global market is in oversupply to the tune of some 4,000 tonnes in 2013, while industrial demand - accounting for some 50 percent of total usage - has been clipped by a slowing solar panel sector, where high profile names such as China's Suntech Power Holdings have fallen on hard times.

Prices plunged 14 percent in April, sparked by gold's worst two day drop in 30 years, while the gold/silver ratio is now around its highest level since September 2010 with an ounce of gold currently buying 61 ounces of silver.

And yet holdings of silver-backed Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) have emerged apparently in rude health.

Major asset manager BlackRock said approximately $18 billion had been seen in outflows from gold ETPs, while silver holdings have recorded $800 million of inflows.

"Investors held silver positions as they thought there was going to be continued monetary expansion, which would lead to strong economic growth," Macquarie analyst Matthew Turner said.

Such a scenario would be more beneficial for silver, Turner said, because while economic expansion dents the safe-haven case for gold bullion, it boosts prospects for silver's industrial applications.

Global ETP assets under management were more than $3 trillion by the end of April with $106 billion, or 5%, allocated to gold ETPs and $14 billion or 0.7% in silver products, BlackRock data showed.

CLOUDY OUTLOOK: BlackRock investment strategy director Ursula Marchioni said however that the reality of silver's resilience could be due to it simply lagging gold.

"If we look at why (silver) ETPs inflows are not going in the same direction as prices, one reason is potentially a time-lag situation, as gold is the headline these days and there is a lot of momentum around it which hasn't been captured in silver at all," she said. — Reuters

New Delhi, May 10
UK retail chain Tesco on Friday sought clarifications from the government regarding sourcing norms for foreign direct investment in multibrand retail before drawing up its plans for India.

The company, which has a partnership with Tata group firm Trent Ltd, said its plans for India would be announced after it got clarity on the issue. Tesco CEO Philip Clarke and Trent vice-chairman Noel Tata met Commerce & Industry Minister Anand Sharma and raised "some of the concerns" during their meeting. "It is important today we heard from the minister about some of the small concerns we have. There will be important points of clarification in months ahead and you will hear more from us then," Clarke told reporters after the meeting.

When pressed for details of the company's plans for India, he said: "I will need the important points of clarification and then you would be hearing more from us."

While neither him nor Tata commented on issues discussed in the meeting, sources said Tesco and Trent sought clarity on sourcing norms, definition of small and medium enterprises and what would constitute back-end infrastructure.