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‘Global corporations adopt LONDON, Oct 15: Despite globalisation and challenges from multi-nationals, family-owned ....more Better telecom facilities DEHRA DUN, Oct 15: Doonites, who had resigned themselves to daily power cuts over the past many .....more
Omar wants Finance NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah has submitted a .....more India need 65 bln dlrs NEW DELHI, Oct 15: India needs 65 billion dollar (Rs 250,000 crore) investment for meeting its urban infrastructure needs while available resources amount to......more |
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RBI restores
EEFC limits to original levels MUMBAI, Oct 15: The mid-term monetary policy announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on......more
Scam in resitement NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Petroleum Ministry has detected a major scam in resitement of transport fuel.......more Indian exports are facing NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Indian exports are facing a wide variety of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) under...more Science, technology funding needs to be increased: Comm NEW DELHI, Oct 15: The Planning Commission says science and technology funding needs to be significantly increased through greater participation of the industry. In its mid term review...more PHDCCI recommends 4-pronged
growth NEW DELHI, Oct 15: PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry has suggested a four-pronged strategy to the Himachal Pradesh Government for the overall growth of .....more |
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‘Global corporations adopt qualities of family business’ LONDON, Oct 15: Despite globalisation and challenges from multi-nationals, family-owned businesses are poised to thrive in the new environment, a leading NRI, Lord Swaraj Paul has said. "As family owned businesses I believe we are blessed with unique properties, which make us ideally place to thrive in this new world," Lord Paul, Chairman of the 500-million pound Caparo Group of Industires said. "There was increasing evidence to suggest that "many global corporations are trying to adopt the qualities which are second nature to US, including passion, real commitment to success, flexibility in work, time and money, long range planning, speedy decision making, stability, reliability, and perhaps, our strongest asset, a real pride in what we do." Lord Paul said at the "family business network - conference 2000" here Friday night. Citing his own example, Lord Paul said he had set up his first manufacturing venture, a small steel tube factory -Natural Gas Tubes Limited - with 5,000 pound of borrowed capital with three workers in 1968. Three decades later, Caparo Group as the company known today had sales of 500-million pound and employed nearly 4000 people in four different countries, he said. "But these results were not easy to achieve. Throughout our company’s history steel and engineering have been in recession or struggling with poor growth," Lord Paul said. The success, he said depended on the five articles of faith- focus on core business - manufacturing steel based products for industry, involvement of all people in the organisation, best equipment and best facilities, workforce as flexible as possible and constant check on overheads. "From a personal viewpoint, the most important thing in business is to enjoy your job," Lord Paul, who is also British Ambassador for Overseas Business and Co-Chairman of the UK-India round table, said. "As we begin, the 21th century Governments are preaching the virtues of both family and return to work," he said and added that with major changes in employment culture and lack of job security, more people are setting up their own family business and resultantly the sector will be increasingly seen as the backbone of modern economies. (PTI) |
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Better telecom facilities in offing for Uttaranchal DEHRA DUN, Oct 15: Doonites, who had resigned themselves to daily power cuts over the past many years, are now looking forward to "brighter" times as directions have been issued to exempt Dehradun from power cuts. Mr Yogendra Narain, Chief Secretary, UP, has directed the Electricity Corporation to stop power cuts in Dehradun, which has been declared the interim capital of Uttaranchal which comes into being on November nine next. Mr B M Vohra, Commissioner, Garhwal told mediapersons here that he had requested the Chief Secretary to exempt other places in Uttaranchal from power cuts keeping in view the tourism activity. Mr Vohra said all arrangements were being made for the oath taking ceremony to be held in November in Dehradun. He said that by October 30 next, all preparations would be completed. Rs eight crore were being spent on furnishing the secretariat, Vidhan Sabha and other offices of the new Government, he added. Twelve new exchanges with 250 telecom lines each will be set up for the Uttaranchal Secretariat and Vidhan Sabha. It has been estimated that Rs 1.18 crore would be spent on this and the facility would begin working early next month. Telecom officials here have been instructed to improve the efficiency levels in the new hill state. Meanwhile, fast work is going on in every nook and corner of Doon to spruce up the long neglected valley which has a rich history and culture. The general attitude evident here is one of excitement mixed with some apprehension regarding the change of identity which doon is experiencing all of a sudden. Fairs and cultural festivals being organised by various organisations like the lions’ club and the Rotarians are adding their bit to the bright atmosphere in doon. Meanwhile security arrangements for the Chief Minister have been completed. Mr A K Singh, SP (Security) who was deployed for the security of Mr Ram Prakash Gupta, arrive here yesterday. Mr Singh said that 125 sub-inspectors and personnel will be deployed for the CM’s security and 100 for the Governor. (UNI) |
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Omar wants Finance Ministry to
set aside 500 mn NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah has submitted a proposal to the Finance Ministry to set aside 500 million US Dollar from the country’s foreign exchange kitty for lending soft loans to exporters to Africa at libor rates. "What I have said in my letter to the Finance Ministry is that out of 35 or 36 billion USD foreign exchange reserves, make 500 million USD available to exporters at cheap rate linked to libor", Mr Abdullah told UNI. The MoS for Commerce and Industry had sent a similar proposal for the benefit of exporters to Latin America. In all, he has proposed a kitty of one billion usd for providing level playing field to the exporters to Africa and Latin America. These two markets, Mr Abdullah said, have immense potential which has not been tapped by India. He said the Indian exporters end up competing with the Western or other exporters in the vast African and Latin American markets at an uneven level in terms of interest rates which are quite high in India. As compared to other exim banks, "exim India cannot give money at less than seven per cent". However, for the African market, Indian products like commercial vehicles are more suitable than Western products because the weather and infrastructure conditions are similar in the two regions. Mr Abdullah said that given the longevity of the products, the eventual cost of Indian goods works out to be lower than other suppliers to Africa. "Tatas bus may cost more than volvo but it would have much more life than any European vehicle in the tough conditions", he said. Mr Abdullah who recently completed his African tour, said India can break new grounds in that continent with countries like Nigeria. He had met Nigerian President Obasanzo who assured him of steady supply of crude oil to the Indian Oil Corporation. Nigeria has also cleared India’s outstanding dues of Rs 25 crore to the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation, removing a stumbling block in the bilateral trade. "With the clearance of these dues, Nigeria will get a fresh credit rating boosting trade prospects", Mr Abdullah said. Nigeria tops the chart of India’s trade with sub-Saharan African countries with a trade figure of 3233.98 million US dollars in 1999-2000. Mr Abdullah in his meeting with President Obasanzo proposed that India, with its expertise in refineries, can set up refining projects in the central African nation. "Nigeria, the seventh largest producer of crude oil, has no refining capacity and we can set it up for them", the Commerce and Industry Minister said. (UNI) |
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India need 65 bln dlrs for urban infrastructure NEW DELHI, Oct 15: India needs 65 billion dollar (Rs 250,000 crore) investment for meeting its urban infrastructure needs while available resources amount to only one-tenth of the requirement, says the Confederation of India Industry (CII). The Chambers, in a paper on infrastructure, pointed out that massive investments are required both for creating the infrastructure as well as for the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure developed and installed. The paper pointed out that urban population has been growing faster than the economic absorptive capacity and financial means of cities, in most developing countries, leading to the growth of cities of unprecedented size. Against this backdrop providing for urban infrastructure has assumed significance. In order to highlight the importance of better urban management in terms of planning and delivery of services, the Chamber is organising a two-day international conference on sustainable development of urban infrastructure here starting on October 17. The Conference would focus on the many issues faced by the residents of Indian cities in housing waste management, urban transportation and sanitation. The Conference, to be inaugurated by Mr N K Singh, secretary to the Prime Minister, would debate and configure a strategy for enhancing the resource availability and using latest state of the art technologies and installing management systems to support healthy urbanisation. According to Planning Commission estimates, CII has added that, by the year 2001, the urban local bodies of India would require an investment of about Rs 327.27 billion in basic infrastructure and services to eliminate the deficiencies in the existing level of services. Technological upscaling needed for the development of the city infrastructure is one of the major issues confronting India. Direct cost recovery not considered for project feasibility is another issue hampering urban infrastructure. Above all, in the absence of clear precedents on the willingness of users to pay for them, pricing services were fraught with uncertainty. Regulatory bottlenecks at the implementation and operationalisation stage also add to the slower growth, according to CII. Looking into the massive fund requirements for the availability of adequate infrastructure services at a reasonable cost, the need for the private sector participationare essential for India’s economic development. CII also pointed out that most of the urban local bodies are on the verge of bankruptcy with no real stream of revenue. According to the paper, in order to attract private participation in infrastructure development, the Government should recognise the need to have an overarching legislation to secure a level playing field for private participants. To expedite the development process, the Government also needs to establish a transparent regulatory frame work governed by an autonomous regulator, especially in the context of urban infrastructure projects. Removal of multiple approval authorities at the implementation stage could also support accelerate successful completion of these projects. CII said strengthening the public hearing facilitated by a neutral regulator and pre-clearing the projects on environmental grounds could obviate the unnecessary delays. Adopting such a two pronged strategy would assist in the overall economic growth of the country as well as in the creation of healthy, efficient and sustainable cities. Inadequate resources with local bodies, absence of reasonable linkage between cost of production and price of consumption, absence of qualified personnel and problem of poor staff strength for maintenance, inflated project cost due to high administrative and supervision charges have been identified as major deficiencies of the urban services by the study. (UNI) |
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RBI restores EEFC limits to original levels MUMBAI, Oct 15: The mid-term monetary policy announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday, was almost as expected, with no major pronouncements coming from the mint street. RBI, however, came up with a set of measures to streamline the domestic market in line with the international practices, as well as for widening the secondary market for gils. RBI has restored EEFC limits to their original levels, while leaving the bank rate and CRR unchanged. The central bank also did away with 5 per cent incremental deposit ceiling for the banks to invest in shares, convertible debentures and equity-linked units of mutual funds. The commercial paper have been delinked from the working capital, to provide the corporates greater flexibility to access cheap funds. According to credence analysis report, the inter bank call money market ruled easy around 9 per cent initially during the week. However the liquidity tightened later towards the week-end and touched one month-high of 11.00 per cent on friday on heavy demand for funds and curtailed supply, despite lower repo rate of 8.50 per cent. Supply was affected as major lending banks focussed their attention on the volatile forex market. The rupee fell to an all time-low of Rs 46.43/45 on friday, due to upsurge in global oil prices and other negative factors. The response for the repo auctions of the RBI, was nominal at about Rs 20,225 crores as lenders preferred lending in the call markets where the rates were much higher compared to the repo yields. RBI also injected Rs 975 crores through the reverse repo route on friday for 10.25 per cent. The amount outstanding in the repo auctions by close of the week stood over Rs 6725 crores. At the secondary market, the credence report said, Government securities opened the week on a cautious note as participants preferred to stay away ahead of the mid term review of credit monetary policy. However, market sentiment turned positive following the announcement by the State Bank of India (SBI) that it will invest 40 per cent of the proceeds from its proposed millennium india deposit (mid) issue to expatriate Indians in Government bonds initially. SBI’s announcement helped to boost market sentiments as players started buying heavily in the market expecting the prices to firm up in the coming days. Prices too moved up amidst an easy call market and expectations of some positive announcements concerning the securities market in the mid term credit policy review. However, gains made initially, were retraced as the rupee weakened to touch a low of Rs 46.35 after standard poor, revised downward its long-term foreign currency issuer rating to stable, from positive for India. With the prices of securities losing heavily players started offloading their holdings leading to selling pressure in the market. The mid term credit policy too did not offer any sops to the G-SEC market which also dampened the market sentiments. There was no respite for the G-SEC market from then, as sentiment was also hit on account of firmer call rates. Government bonds slumped in Friday opening deals as the rupee slid to a record low of 46.44 to the dollar following fears of hike in the global crude oil prices and escalating tensions in the Middle East. Trading remained dull towards the end of the week as most traders stayed on the sidelines waiting for the rupee to shed its volatility. Volumes traded were low with the call rates ruling high and as most players stayed away from the markets preferring to watch the movements in the forex markets before taking any positions. (UNI). |
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Scam in resitement of petro retail outlets detected NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Petroleum Ministry has detected a major scam in resitement of transport fuel Retail Outlets (RO) by three national oil marketing companies where ROs were found to be running at both the new and old locations. Eight ROs, belonging to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and IBP, in Uttar Pradesh, even after resitement, were found to be operating at the old locations by the same dealer in gross violation of the resitement norms, official sources said. During a surprise check of resited ROs recently it was found that petroleum products were being sold at both old and new outlets in violation of the resitement norms which state that sale of the products at the old location should be discontinued after the new site is provided. Petroleum Minister Ram Naik has directed a nationwide inspection of cases of all retail outlets involving resitement by the oil marketing companies in the last five years. Four of the ROs found violating resitement norms belong to HPCL, three to bpcl while the IBP owns the remaining one. Taking a serious view of the violation of the resitement norms, the minister has issued directions for taking stringent action against the officers who allowed functioning of ROs at both the sites as revealed in the test-checks. It has also been decided to effect recoveries from the dealers concerned of equivalent to the amount of commission earned by running the parallel facilities at old site which they were not supposed to operate, sources added. The minister has directed that cross-checking the status of resitement should be done by officers of different oil companies to whom the ro belonged, sources said. (PTI) |
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Indian exports are facing variety of NTBs: FICCI NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Indian exports are facing a wide variety of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) under a number of US legislations, some dating back to 1933, according to FICCI. These are posing a series of barriers to the entry of Indian exports to the United States, the chamber said. The particular American laws that hinder Indian exports in various sector are subsidies and countervailing measures, safeguards, rules of origin, American Automobile Act, Buy American Act of 1933, Transportation Equity Act of 1998, Federation Regulation Act and Information Technology Management Act, among others. These findings have emerged from a FICCI study on "comparative trade policy analysis to assess barriers to trade". The study is an attempt to ascertain problems encountered by Indian exporters in international markets. Some of the NTBs having distortionary impacts are: Quota, standards, health regulations and other sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, barriers including levies enforced by different local Governments. These NTBs can be broadly classified into three major headings such as quantitative restrictions, subsidies to domestic supplies and cost imposed schemes. The FICCI study pointed out that Indian exports to us is not able to achieve its optimum potential because of such factors which can be classified as NTBs. QRs form the most important impediment to exports to us. These are mainly in the area of textiles and readymade garments in the form of restraint levels (quota) for woven shirts and blouses which is used as safeguard measure by the US. Section 301 of US Trade Policy that has recently been declared as WTO consistent has also been a major source of restriction to exports. User fees like the merchandise processing Fee and Harbour Maintenance Act also raise the price of landed imports thus making them uncompetitive. Along with these us maintains such standards for imports that it becomes impossible for goods made in developing countries to enter US. These standards are enforced through testing of goods before entry, compulsory certification and examination of complaints, standards law like the Fastener Quality Act impose cumbersome and discriminatory procedure against non-NAFTA countries. The FICCI study points out that import of various food products like raw meat are prohibited in US in the name of sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures. Import of egg products are also subject to stringent conditions and requires the continuous inspection of production process. The US law regarding the protection of sea turtles have affected export of Indian shrimp as the US has placed Indian companies on a special list for inspection. Standards on fresh fruit and vegetables also act as a barrier for most Indian exports. The quarantine and other phytosanitary measures have prevented the import of Indian grapes and mangoes. (UNI) |
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Science, technology funding needs to be increased: Comm NEW DELHI, Oct 15: The Planning Commission says science and technology funding needs to be significantly increased through greater participation of the industry. In its mid term review, the Planning Commission says although efforts have been made to promote various disciplines of science and technology, manpower development and large scale applications and integration of science and technology in various sectors of development are critical focus in the domain of science and technology. The S and T thrust in response to WTO needs to be focussed on conformance to global, particularly for IPR awareness,informations, generation and exploitation mechanism and quality assurance system. The review says the major thrust has been on harnessing of S and for societal benefits, R and D programmes on mission modes, nurturing of outstanding scientists, establishment of linkages between industry and research institutions and laboratories for the development of market technology, development of clean and eco-friendly technologies, awareness on technology marketing and IPR issues. Concerted efforts have been made on strengtheing R and D activities, science and technology infrastructure in universities strengthening and promoting indigenous technology using STAC and IS-STAC mechanism. National apex level S and T mechanisms needs to play a critical role to provide policy directives and implementation guidance the technology development programmess should be demand driven recognising importance of market mechanism so that sophisticated research facilities and VAST S and T could be utilised optimally. The review says there is need to evole thrust areas and programmes in various disciplines of science for implementation by different agencies to ensure focussed approach and avoid duplication. The review says efforts have been made to continue to maintain a strong science base and develop technological competence. In order to strengthen technological capabilities of the Indian industries, both for meeting the national needs and for providing global competitiveness, a number of new initiatives have been launched through Programme Aimed at Technology Self Reliance (PATSER), Technology Development Board (TDB) and home grown technologies. Individual innovators are also being supported under new Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TEPP). Efforts have been made for strengthening R and D activities through creation of new research facilities, introduction of the basic concept of research missions attracting young scientists by awarding fellowships strengtheing S and T infrastructure in universities and academic institutions promotion of indigenous technology using science and technology advisory committees (IS-STAC) of the various socio-economic sectors and inter-sectoral science and technology advisory committe mechanism of the Deperatment of Science and Technology. A number of science and society related programmes have been implemented to demonstrate the application of S and T for improving the quality of life by creating productive jobs, reducing drudgery, improving health and environment in the areas of black smithy, carp breed hatchery, low cost preservation and promotion of horticulture programmes. (UNI)
PHDCCI recommends 4-pronged growth strategy for HP NEW DELHI, Oct 15: PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry has suggested a four-pronged strategy to the Himachal Pradesh Government for the overall growth of the state. The chamber has asked the State Government to focus on exploiting hydro-power, developing new townships, promoting tourism through private sector participation and supporting eco-friendly industries to put the state on the growth path. Phdcci will present the recommendations to the State Chief Secretary A K Goswami at an interactive session on October 17, a chamber release said. It has proposed that the State Government should develop a common market for sale of surplus power. By the end of the tenth plan, the state will produce 7,200 mw power through the joint efforts of public and private sectors. The chamber has asked the Himachal Pradesh Government to prepare a perspective infrastructure development plan for the next 20 years adding that five-year plan should focus on physical infrastructure of power, telecom and social infrastructure with better basic amenties. "A specialized infrastructure developement company should be floated with shareholding from the Government, financial institutions, private investors and the industries for developing industrial township at Baddi-Barotiwala and Paonta Sahib", the chamber said. For creating employment, PHDCCI has proposed the State Government undertakings engaged in manufacturing be converted into joint sector companies and be managed by professionals. (PTI) |
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