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Jalan for flexibility HYDERABAD, Feb 4: The Reserve Bank of India Governor Bimal Jalan today called....more
Centre to involve states CALCUTTA, Feb 4: Centre is planning to involve the State Governments to give....more
Omar urges foreign NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah...more |
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US Congress for scarpping of remaining sanctions WASHINGTON, Feb 4: The US Congress will press the Clinton administration for scrapping the remaining post-nuclear sanctions against India. .....more
Promote indigenous MUMBAI, Feb 4: Principal Scientific Advisor to the Union Government Dr A P J Kalam today called upon Indian machine and tool manufacturers to ....more Suzuki to re-visit NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Suzuki Motor Corporation President and CEO Osamu Suzuki is planning to re-visit India in March 2000, within three months of his ....more Chennai networking fund plans info portal NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Chennai-based Apcom Ltd, the front-end marketing company for the networking products,with Rs 50 crore business is planning to launch an information portal. ....more CLB directs Kuber NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Company Law Board (CLB) has directed defaulting Nidhi company Kuber Mutual Benefits Ltd to repay the money to its |
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Jalan for flexibility in interest rates HYDERABAD, Feb 4: The Reserve Bank of India Governor Bimal Jalan today called for more flexibility in interest rate structure to make the country’s financial system vibrant. Speaking at the "India Finance Forum-2000", organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, Jalan said the rigid and inflexible interest rates was one of the problems that should be resolved. "In terms of regulatory mechanism, we are trying to move towards internationally accepted standards in transparency and accounting", the RBI Governor said. Expressing concern over lack of public confidence in private sector as deposit takers, he quoted a recent survey to point out that only 15 per cent of depositors felt their money was safe in private institutions. "We must work out a mechanism to make private players more accountable and answerable. The Government, RBI and private sector should come together and apply their collective mind to reduce fiscal imbalance," Jalan said. He expressed confidence that India, given its capacity and capability and a reasonably diversified capital finance system, would emerge as the most vibrant economy in the 21st century. The two-day international conference is aimed at equipping corporate India with emerging global opportunities guided by technological changes. It would focus on globalisation, technological innovations and deregulation which have dramatically altered the landscape for corporate India, the chairman of the "Indian Fianance Forum" Ramesh Gelli said. Jalan said Indian economy has demonstrated, in the last one decade, its capacity to grow steadily, inspite of the external crisis and substantial progress had been achieved in making the financial system strong. He, however, said there was scope to increase financial savings which now accounted for 10 per cent of the GDP. "The process of reforms cannot be completed unless different segments of policy making apparatus come together and gear up to implement the agenda for the future," the RBI Governor said. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, in his address, said the country’s economy was growing strongly despite political instability at the Centre in the last three years. "If we can increase our savings rate from the present 26 to 30 per cent, we can achieve a growth rate of eight per cent in near future," Naidu said. Stating that information technology would continue to be a key factor driving the global economy in the next 20 years, the Chief Minister spoke about his vision of harnessing emerging technologies for the benefit of common man and to reform the state administration to make it transparent, responsive and accountable. Claiming that AP was the first state in the country to go in for digital governance, he sought suggestions from the CII members on funding innovative infrastructure projects in the state. (PTI) |
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Centre to involve states in promoting exports CALCUTTA, Feb 4: Centre is planning to involve the State Governments to give a further boost to the country’s export performance and the plan is likely to be announced in the new exim policy, according to Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Murasoli Maran. Speaking at an interactive session on exim policy here, he said the details of the plan was being worked out. We will try to announce the plan in the next exim policy, he said. Agreeing with exporters that taxes and tariffs impeded exports, he pointed out that as states get their major share of revenue from sales tax and excise duty, their Governments are not much interested in reducing or waiving those to promote exports. Hence, there is a need to involve the State Governments in an export promotion strategy, he said. Stating that the country could not improve its growth level unless there is a ‘big jump’ in exports, the Minister said there is a need to diversify from the traditional export goods, "if necessary, with foreign investment." The interactive session was organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations. (PTI) |
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Omar urges
foreign companies to take advantage NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah has urged the European companies to take full advantage of the liberalised Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regime in India and step up their investments in the country. Addressing the millennium meeting at Brussels last evening, Mr Abdullah said "India is an attractive long-term in investment destination possessing all necessary characteristics of a democracy with a huge market, infrastructure and suitable grounds for expansion, growth and relocation. Investment in India should be made not only for its promise and potential, but, equally important, for its performance." Captains of European trade and industry were present at the meeting. India recognises European Union’s prominent role as a big investor in India as the countries of EU, as a block, account for about a third of India’s global FDI receipts, the minister said. Mr Abdullah further said that the various Indo-EU investment facilitation instruments such as Asia Invest, ECIP and India-EU Partenarial etc, if effectively accessed, could provide a significant boost to the EU investments in India. India, on its part has substantially released the provisions relating to foreign investment, industrial licesing, foreign exchange controls etc., besides easing restrictions on imports, he pointed out. The industrial policy reforms have reduced the industrial licensing requirements to a select list of hazardous and environmentally sensitive industries, the minister added. As a result of the reform process, the earlier system of seeking Government approvals has been dismantled. FDI, he said, is welcomed in practically all areas of the economy. Under the automatic route, FDI is permissible upto 50 per cent, 51 per cent, 74 per cent, and even 100 per cent depending upon the nature of the industry. Other cases are decided on a case by case by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and the approvals since 1991 exceed 59 billion dollars, Mr Abdullah informed the gathering. Sectoral investment opportunities exist in the fields of infrastructure (such as roads, ports, power and telecom), financial services, information technology and several other areas, Mr Abdullah said. While the liberalisation process in India has led to enhance FDI flows into the country, there was, however, a feeling that much more needs to be done and in this context, there was talk of a second generation of reforms, he said. These would, inter-alia, seek to address issues relating to privatisation, greater debureacratisation and need to downsize the Government. Financial sector reforms would also be an important component of this process, Mr Abdullah said. Speaking on multilateral issues, which he said were of much concern to everybody, Mr Abdullah said that India stands for orderly, transparent and non-discriminatory trade policies and a multilateral just and fair dispute settlement mechanism. The continuous efforts by the Government of India to build up a democratic consensus in the matter of patent legislations is a proof of our abiding faith in the multilateral system, he said. The minister also emphasised that the in-built agenda of the WTO was fairly large and adequate and it need not be burdened further. The non-trade issues need to be kept out of the agenda in the interests of the fair and non-discriminatory trade. Highlighting India’s concerns, Mr Abdullah said that a whole range of barriers from sanitary and phytosanitary measures to packaging requirements from anti-dumping measures to quotas are effectively thwarting market access to products of developing countries including India and this situation is having a dampening effort on our trade liberalisation process. (UNI) |
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US Congress for scarpping of remaining sanctions WASHINGTON, Feb 4: The US Congress will press the Clinton administration for scrapping the remaining post-nuclear sanctions against India. Brownback said he was one of those responsible for the legislation which resulted in the partial scrapping of the sanctions. Alva said that many of the key policy makers in washington have become remarkably pro-India under the current circumstances. Earlier, Alva met Clinton and requested the first family to visit Bangalore on his trip to India, which will commence on March 20. However, Hillary Clinton said she would be unable to make it as she was fighting for a Senate seat in New York but pointed out that their daughter, Chelsea, will accompany Clinton. Alva also met some key members of the US Congress like co-chairman of the India Caucus Gary Ackerman, Co-Chairman of the US-India parliamentary group James McDermott and others. (PTI) |
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Promote indigenous design, fabrication, says A P J Kalam MUMBAI, Feb 4: Principal Scientific Advisor to the Union Government Dr A P J Kalam today called upon Indian machine and tool manufacturers to promote indigenous designing and fabrication for export purposes. Inaugurating the five-day National Manufacturing Technology Show (NMTS 2000) here, Kalam said machine and tool industry, the country’s core industry, should create in-house designing and fabrication units, so that the industry could save time and revenue and do not have to use obsolete imported technologies. The show was organised by the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA) and the Confederation of Indian Industries. Kalam appreciated the contribution made by industries in Mumbai in the last few decades for some of the strategic sectors like space research, defence and atomic energy and also in satellite launch vehicle and "Agni" test missile. Speaking on the occasion, the president of NMTs J Godrej said the show was precisely a manifestation of what Indian manufacturers have done in terms of developing home-grown technologies. "In fact, Indian machine tool industry has stopped receiving technology from outside world practically since the beginning of the last decade and whatever developed in the country are primarily because of the efforts of our own engineers and technicians in our tool workshops," Godrej said. (PTI) |
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Suzuki to re-visit India in March NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Suzuki Motor Corporation President and CEO Osamu Suzuki is planning to re-visit India in March 2000, within three months of his previous visit that generated a controversy following SMC’s refusal to transfer the gearbox technology to Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL). Mr Suzuki is likely to hold meetings with Maruti dealers and also call on senior Government officials during his next visit, sources told UNI here. But a definite schedule of his visit and duration of stay is yet to be finalised. Senior MUL officials confirmed it saying, "Mr Suzuki has evinced interest in re-visiting India and his schedule is currently being worked out...However, we are yet to receive a firm date of his visit." During his last visit to India, Mr Suzuki had refused to transfer the critical gearbox technology to India saying, it is not required. He had further stated that since MUL produces only cars and not gearboxes, it does not make sense in transferring the technology to India. However, Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Manohar Joshi had said that talks are still on for transferring the technology to MUL. "Our officials are still talking with SMC officals. We have put up our demands...Now it is for them to decide," Mr Joshi had said. Transfer of gearbox technology has been hanging fire between the two partners in MUL— Government of India and SMC — for a long time now. Suzuki had earlier submitted before the MUL Board of Directors a project proposal for transferring the technology and stated that the project would envisage an investment of Rs 1,200 crore. SMC had stated in its project report that it is willing to transfer the entire technology for making gearboxes in two phases spread over a period of three years. The MUL board has been deliberating on the issue for a long time, studying the financial viability of the Suzuki proposal. The company was also deliberating whether it would be desirable to have a new corporate entity for implementing the gearbox project. As per the initial report, SMC will tranfer the technology for making the easy gears in the first phase and the more difficult ones in the second phase. The entire plant will be set up over a period of three years. During his previous visit to India, Mr Suzuki had unveiled the Wagon-R here and inaugurated Maruti’s third plant, with a capacity of 100,000 vehicles per annum. Besides, he had also addressed a meeting with an apex trade and industry chamber in the capital. (UNI) |
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Chennai networking fund plans info portal NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Chennai-based Apcom Ltd, the front-end marketing company for the networking products,with Rs 50 crore business is planning to launch an information portal. According to Apcom Computers Director Deepak Mirza, the work on the portal project has started and it would take a few months before it takes shape. He said apcom which was getting bulk of its revenue by marketing products of foreign vendors like Compex,Eicon, would focus on promoting its own brand - Dax. "The foreign representation business used to contribute 90 per cent of our business earlier.This year,it would be coming down to 65 per cent and the idea is to bring the same to 50: 50". Mr Mirza said Apcom is sourcing the products from Taiwan and "value-adding"here. Even while the company has set an ambition of growing to Rs 100 crore business in the next few years,it has no plans to set up any manufacturing base in India. Apcom does not even want to cash on the infotech boom in the stock market. "We have enough funds to grow and would remain quite conservative about finance", he said. (UNI) |
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CLB directs Kuber Mutual to repay deposits NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Company Law Board (CLB) has directed defaulting Nidhi company Kuber Mutual Benefits Ltd to repay the money to its depositors in the next two years. CLB member C R Mehta in a suo-motto order directed Kuber to repay the deposits, collected under different schemes, which have already matured and the deposits which would be maturing in future. According to the repayment scheme, deposits upto Rs 5,000 has to be re-paid within the next three months. Deposits between Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 have to be returned in two equal six monthly instalments, ie, by end of year 2000. While deposits between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 has to be paid in three six monthly equal instalments and for deposits over Rs 15,000, repayment is to be made in four equal six monthly instalments. As per the CLB directions, entire amount of Rs 100 crore in the form of various deposits has to be re-paid by Kuber by the end of 2002. However, the order said the repayment scheme would be subject to any modification being ordered by Delhi High Court, which has received various Public Interest Litigations against Kuber. CLB order said Kuber has to pay interest rate on these deposits at the contracted rate upto the date of maturity and after that the company has to pay 12.5 per cent interest rate annually till the actual payment. But the entire interest rate to the depositors will be paid along with the last instalment. Kuber started defaulting in re-payment in October-November 1998 after Delhi High Court restrained the company from selling its assets except in the normal course of business, and following a sudden mass move by large number of depositors for withdrawal of their deposits. In addition to it, the economic slowdown and imbalance in the inflow and outflow of funds also affected the repayment. Before CLB, the company counsel said that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had carried out the inspection of Kuber and found that it had assets more than its liabilities. The counsel also informed the board that the company has also sought the permission of Delhi High Court to sell properties for repayment of its various liabilities including for deposits. (PTI) |
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