Centre’s fiscal deficit under control: Narayan

NEW DELHI, Oct 15: The Centre said today its fiscal deficit was "under control" but not that of the states, making the overall situation "a matter of concern".

Addressing a seminar here, Finance Secretary S Narayan said, "the Centre’s fiscal deficit is under control. More concern is on states’ fiscal deficit."

The Centre had restricted its fiscal deficit to Rs 55,496 crore during the first five months as against Rs 1,35,524 crore budgeted for the entire fiscal mainly through higher revenue collections.

Although fiscal deficit was a matter of concern, he said, macroeconomic fundamentals including comfortable foreign exchange reserves provided the necessary cushion.

Continuing the upward March, Forex reserves crossed 63 billion dollar during the week ended October four.

Narayan said the country had over 60 million tonnes of foodgrains stock, apparently indicating that it would not impact the demand-supply situation, causing the inflation to move up.

Noting that the cost of borrowings had decreased by over two per cent in one year, he said the Centre could complete the budgeted borrowings at Rs 1,42,867 crore for the whole year without affecting the economy. However, the Centre’s borrowing stood at Rs 98,000 crore till October first week, which is about 69 per cent of the budgeted amount for 2002-03.

Indicating the industry revival, he said the manufacturing sector grew by 15.17 per cent in the first six months of the present fiscal as compared to that of the previous year period.

On imports, excluding that of oil and gold, he said the growth had decelerated to 3.1 per cent in the same period of the previous fiscal. (PTI)

India, China likely to record economic growth at 6.8% in 2003

SINGAPORE, Oct 15: India and China are expected to record the highest rate of economic growth in the world, averaging at 6.8 per cent each in 2003, about the same as this year, and slightly better than the 6.4 per cent recorded last year, according to the world economic outlook presented here today.

The economic growth of the two countries would surpass that of the total for developing Asia, which would average 6.3 per cent in 2003, up from 6.1 per cent this year and 5.6 per cent for last year, said the report by Dr Kenneth Rogoff, Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund.

The Southeast Asian nations’ economic growth would average at 4.2 per cent for next year, up from 3.6 per cent this year and 2.6 per cent in 2001, the report added.

Japan is likely to recover to a 1.1 economic growth next year from minus 0.5 per cent this year and minus 0.3 per cent last year.

Overall, the global economic growth would average 3.7 per cent in 2003, from 2.8 per cent this year and 2.2 per cent last year, said the report.

According to the report, the European Union economic would slip to 1.1 per cent growth for this year from 1.6 per cent last year but firm up at 2.3 per cent in 2003.

The economic growth of United States was projected at 2.6 per cent in 2003, up from 2.2 per cent this year and 0.3 per cent last year. (UNI)

HPCL launches Club HP in Nagpur

NAGPUR, Oct 15: Assuring high quality personalised "vehicle and consumer care", public sector undertaking Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited(HPCL) launched its new retail brand club HP in Nagpur amidst fanfare yesterday evening.

Having covered 200 outlets in more than ten major cities across the country including the major metros of mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkatta, Nagpur is the third city after the metropolis and Pune, HPCL’s West Zone general manager K R Shankaran told reporters after the launch function.

With the opening up of the oil sector to private players in the era of open economy, the HPCL has been on the aggressive on its retail branding and the company is spending around Rs 250 crore during the current financial year on retail brand including the Club HP, which would incorporate upgrading the outlets to provide a host of services to the clientale, Mr Shankaran said.

In fact, the company has been spending a little over Rs 200 crore in promotion of retail branding for the past two years, he said.

The HPCL has 4,600 outlets across the country and it has targeted 1,000 outlets to be converted into club hp by March next year, Mr Shankaran said.

When asked how much expenditure is incurred in bringing an outlet to the standards for a Club HP outlet, Mr Shankar said the company is spending anything between Rs five and Rs 20 lakh depending on its size, location and the services it would be providing to the customers.

In Nagpur, nine outlets have been converted into Club HP outlets, he informed.

Mr Shankaran said each of these Club HP would provide a set of basic and value-added offerings which would include consumer certifiable fuel quality and quantity assurance, efficient and expert service, quick care point, digital air towers, vehicle finance and insurance relate services, bill payment facilities, HPCL-ICICI credit cards.

The HPCL, he said, is also forging alliances with several automobile companies to jointly identify Club HP outlets, which could qualify as authorised service centres for leading automobile brands.

The Club HP outlets have been categorised as standard, mega and max depending on the levels of amenities available.

Company’s branded products would be available in Nagpur in a month’s time, he added. (UNI)

IOC to offer Lanka-based tankages for storage

NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Indian Oil Corporation, the country’s lone company in the fortune global 500, will offer its strategic tankages in Sri Lanka, on a commercial basis, to other companies as third party storage for exporting their products to other countries.

"To some extent we will utilise these tankages for feeding the markets there while giving the rest to other players for storing their products for export to other countries, " IOC chairman M S Ramachandran told UNI here.

"We will develop our business and give it to them for storing their products on commercial basis," he added.

"We will be taking over the management control of the tankages at China bay in Trincomalee on long-term lease. A decision has been taken to hand over these tankages to us in the near future," Mr Ramachandaran said.

"This would help in expanding our market further into that country. The strategy is in line with IOC’s corporate vision of becoming a trans-national energy major," he added.

To strengthen its presence in the Sri Lankan market, IOC had recently entered into an agreement with the country’s state-owned company Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (Ceypetco) for supplying petroleum products worth 100 million dollars.

As per the commercial contract, valid for a year, the company has begun exporting 30,000 tonnes of diesel and 10,000 tonnes of aviation turbine fuel from September 2002. The refining capacity in Sri Lanka is at 2.2 million tonnes per annum, well short of the demand of 3.5 mt of petroleum products every year. Ceypetco has been importing 1.3 mtpa from the international spot market.

The oil major has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Sri Lanka called Lanka IOC to help it enter the downstream market, including retail marketing terminals, storage and infrastructure. The company has floated a joint venture with the ceylon petroleum corporation to be called Sri-Lanka-IOC Ltd.

The Lankan market is attractive to India’s biggest oil company because of the surplus petroleum product scenario in India, he said.

During the first quarter of the current fiscal, IOC registered an increase of 12.7 per cent in net profit at Rs 624.99 crore as compared to Rs 554.44 crore during the same period last year.

The company has been achieved this in spite of non-revision of the retail prices of Motor Spirit (MS) and High Speed Diesel (HSD) during April and May 2002 corresponding to the increase in the international prices.

The income from sales and operations achieved during the period was Rs 28,369.52 crore as compared to rs 30,076.38 crore, recorded during the same period last year. (UNI)

Alembic to launch OTC division by month-end

NEW DELHI, Oct 15: With a view to capitalising on the emerging Over-the-Counter (OTC) market orientation in pharma sector, leading Drugmaker Alembic Limited is launching its OTC division as a Strategic Business Unit (SBU) by this month-end.

The Rs 624-crore pharma group, which has recently opened a centralised marketing network in Mumbai to operate the SBUs, plans to shift all its established cough and cold brands and nutraceuticals into the new division for marketing.

"The entire infrastructure, including the appointment of a business head, for the proposed sbu will be ready by the end of this month," Alembic vice-president Atul Barman told UNI.

The Ahmedabad-based healthcare company has already contracted O M for the aggressive product promotional activities for the OTC segment.

Mr Barman said the SBU for OTC has a target of Rs 25 to 35 crore in the first year.

Since the concept of pushing OTC products at a broader market perspective is still to pick up in the country, initially it is going to involve more investment on the promotion and create public awareness about the products, he added.

The company vice-president pointed out, "the promotion and awareness campaign is going to be major trend in the country as it has happened in the developed nations."

But at the same time, he said, it is not wise to shift the complete range of OTC products into this route because the brand reputation that the product has created over a period of time is very important for the company to push it into the broader market. Mr Barman disclosed, "initially, we will start with our established brands like Glycodin, Zeet and Ephodrex range in the cold and cough segment and Megatrex, Isovon, Calcy etc in the nutraceutical segment.

"Gradually, we will go on adding new products and are also planning to acquire known brands from the companies for the division."

The company, as part of the fresh restructuring strategy on the market front, has already decided to streamline market operations and enhance the research focus with a topline business target.

With a 20 per cent annual growth in mind, the company for the first time is streamlining its marketing operations into five sbus.

These SBUs include pharma, speciality products, OTC, franchise and generic with exclusive field and managerial attention, he said adding that of these, the SBU for speciality products has already been launched recently.

The speciality SBU, which has 125 medical representatives and 40 dedicated sales support and administration staff with additional first line managers, has targeted a sales turn over of Rs 25 crore in the first year.

The other proposed business units like pharma, franchise and generic would carry a business target of Rs 350 crore, Rs 40 crore and Rs 60 crore, respectively, Mr Barman added. (UNI)

HPCL, BPCL disinvestemt before fiscal-end

NEW DELHI, Oct 15: Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Rajiv Pratap Rudy today expressed confidence that the controversial disinvestment in HPCL and BPCL would be completed by this fiscal-end.

"I don’t think there are any problems now related with the disinvestment in the oil majors."

"Our Government is confident that the whole process would be completed by the end of this fiscal," Mr Rudy told newspersons here after the inauguration of MMTC’s ‘Festival of Gold 2002’.

Asked whether the Government was still hopeful of the disinvestment in HPCL and BPCL given the opposition of senior Cabinet Ministers like George Fernandes and Murli Manohar Joshi over the manner in which it was proposed to be carried out, he said all such problems were being sorted out.

"The whole exercise is currently in the final discussion stage. Earlier the oil PSUs were thought to be of strategic importance from the national security point of view.

"But now such apprehensions have been cleared and the disinvestment process is on the right track," he said.

Mr Rudy declined to comment over the manner in which disinvestment would be carried out in the two oil PSUs.

"I can’t say right now whether it will be through the initial public offer (IPO) route or through strategic sale."

"These are complex issues and steps to arrive at a consensus are being taken," he added. (UNI)

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