St. Petersburg, September 6
Taking on board India's concerns, the G20 Summit today acknowledged that excess volatility of financial flows and disorderly movements in exchange rates can affect economic and financial stability of emerging markets and called for sound policies to address it.

Coming against the backdrop of the battering that rupee suffered in recent weeks, the 27-page G-20 Leaders' Declaration committed itself to cooperate to ensure that policies implemented to support domestic growth also support global growth and financial stability and to manage their spillovers other countries.

The Summit also shared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's views on the need for orderly exit from the monetary stimulus undertaken in the context of 2008 economic crisis.

"In the five years since we first met, coordinated action by the G20 has been critical to tackling the financial crisis and putting the world economy on a path to recovery.

"But our work is not yet complete and we agreed that it remains critical for G20 countries to focus all our joint efforts on engineering a durable exit from the longest and most protracted crisis in modern history," the declaration said.

It noted that the most urgent need is to increase the momentum of the global recovery, generate higher growth and better jobs while strengthening the foundations for long term growth and avoiding policies that could cause the recovery to falter or promote growth at other countries' expense.

Talking about the problems arising out of the exit from stimulus package, the G-20 leaders said monetary policy will continue to be directed towards domestic price stability and supporting the economic recovery according to the respective mandates of central banks.

St Petersburg: India today said it has 'adequate' foreign exchange reserves to defend its currency amid global volatility and ruled out taking any external assistance unless there is a 'radical' change in the situation.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia also said the rupee's fall this year has clearly overshot limits.

"With $280 billion in reserves, I don't think we will be drawing on currency swap arrangements unless there is a radical change in the situation," said Ahluwalia. He also reiterated that some depreciation of the Indian rupee —which had touched historic low of close to Rs 69 last month — was justifiable.

"But when it was close to Rs 69 there was clear overshooting and the extent of rupee was not all connected with high market volatility," he said. — PTI

Mumbai, September 6
The rupee today jumped 77 paise to 65.24 and Sensex soared by 290 points to scale the 19,000-mark on continued hopes triggered by new RBI governor Raghuram Rajan's steps to push in more reforms in the financial sector.

Markets cheered the slew of proposals by Rajan, aimed at strengthening rupee and reviving growth, for the third straight day as investors appeared bullish.

Against Thursday's close of 66.01, the rupee today ended at 65.24 — highest level in nearly 2 weeks — on heavy dollar selling, capital flows and weak American currency overseas.

This is the strongest closing since 64.30 on August 26 and marks over 5 per cent appreciation from record low of 68.85 hit on August 28.

Dollar sales by exporters, a weak US currency overseas and renewed capital inflows also helped the rupee to gain.

The rupee opened at 66 against the dollar from 66.01 previously at the interbank foreign exchange market and touched a low of 66.32. It bounced back to a high of 65 before settling at 65.24, a rise of 77 paise or 1.17 per cent.

Rajan has so far announced steps such as enhanced limits for exporters to re-book cancelled forward exchange contracts, a special concessional window to swap foreign currency non-resident deposits and raised overseas borrowing limit of banks' unimpaired tier-I capital.

Banking shares, like ICICI, led the charge from the front as RBI's earlier moves to curb liquidity and tame rupee, had pushed up short-term rates hitting lenders the most.

Meanwhile, gold continued to see downward pressure. Barring Delhi where it rose by Rs 50 to Rs 31,000 per 10 gram, gold fell by about Rs 700 each in Mumbai and Kolkata, and slid by Rs 330 in Chennai. — PTI

Bangalore, September 6
India's second largest IT services exporter, Infosys saw a yet another high-profile exit with its BPO head for Latin America Humberto Andrade quitting the company.

Confirming Andrade's resignation, Infosys in a statement said: "Humberto Andrade has decided to move on from Infosys BPO." Andrade's profile on professional network site LinkedIn states his current work profile as Capegemini vice-president, consumer products/retail/distribution BPO — Americas.

Infosys also said Aniket Maindarkar has rejoined the company.

"Aniket Maindarkar, who was with Infosys BPO earlier, has rejoined as head of Americas for Infosys BPO," the statement added.

The Bangalore-based firm is witnessing an exodus of its top management in the past few months.

Last month saw the exit of Infosys Board member and head of Americas business Ashok Vemuri and vice-president and financial services head for the Americas Sudhir Chaturvedi.

In July, former global sales head of Infosys, Basab Pradhan, had announced his decision to resign.

The development comes amidst organisational restructuring that co-founder and executive chairman NR Narayana Murthy is now overseeing after returning to revive the sagging fortunes of the company in June. — PTI

Mumbai, September 6
The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has revised circuit limits for shares of 463 companies, including United Breweries Holdings, Reliance MediaWorks, Kingfisher Airlines and DB Realty, as part of surveillance action.

The revised circuit limits, which ensures that the price of a scrip cannot move upward or downward beyond a limit set for the day, is effective from today.

The exchange has increased the circuit limit for some stocks, while it has been reduced for others.

BSE has raised the circuit limit for 409 scrips, including UBHL, Reliance MediaWorks, Kingfisher Airlines, Essar Oil, UB Engineering, MMTC, Venus Remedies to 10 per cent from 5 per cent.

Besides, BSE has also increased circuit filter level for companies such as Zuari Global, Kesoram Industries, Hindustan Copper, National Fertilizers to 20 per cent from 10 per cent.

For as many as 78 scrips, the circuit limit has been upped from 2 per cent to 5 per cent, which includes Lifeline Drugs & Pharma, Mahindra Composites, Venus Power Ventures (India).

The exchange has, however, lowered the circuit filter for a total of 64 companies.

BSE has narrowed the limit for 28 companies to 5 per cent from 20 per cent, reduced the filter for 16 firms from 20 per cent to 10 per cent.

In a separate circular, NSE has set 5 per cent circuit limit for 394 companies, 10 per cent for 146 firms and 20 per cent for a total of 895 companies.

However, there is no price band for 147 companies.

The companies that will have 5 per cent price band include Emkay Global Financial Services, JVL Agro Industries, Lloyds Finance, Pipavav Defence, Piramal Life Sciences and Multi Commodity Exchange of India. — PTI

Rajkot, September 6
German luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz has decided to double its annual production capacity at Pune plant to 20,000 units from next year, according to a top company official.

"2013 has been a very good year for Mercedes-Benz India as we have aggressively launched new products, expanded to new markets and we are confident of maintaining our strong performance for the remaining year," managing director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India Eberhard Kern said here.

He was here to inaugurate the company's first luxury car dealership in Saurashtra region.

"Indian economy might be in shaky condition but we are doing very well in India and we are eyeing to double our production capacity," Kern said.

"At present, our Pune-based factory has a capacity to produce 10,000 units per year, but we are now improving the capacity to double by spending around Rs 850 crore, and from next year we will be able to produce 20,000 units per year" Kern said.

He said the company is not only planning to improve its production capacity but also concentrating to expand its network. — PTI