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Govt
will soon announces NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Disappointed by the export performance in the first...more Cotton
yield to double CHANDIGARH, Nov 2: After a virtual three-year cotton eclipse, Punjab and...more McKinsey
report to be NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Global consultants McKinsey’s will submit its report on .....more |
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Software export revenues NEW DELHI, Nov 2: The software export revenues grew....more Dundee
Bond Fund to be CALCUTTA, Nov 2: Dundee Bond Fund, an open...more MUMBAI, Nov 2: Selective approach to offering insurance...more
Gold roll down further NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Gold prices rolled down further...more |
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Govt will soon announces mid-year EXIM policy NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Disappointed by the export performance in the first half of the current fiscal, the Government will soon announce a mid-year EXIM policy to boost exports, Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran said today. However, he skipped direct reply on the time-frame of the policy stating that the issue is being discussed. Talking to reporters after addressing a seminar on "Seattle ministerial conference of WTO and India", organised by FICCI and IGEP, Mr Maran said," we are clearly disappointed by the performance of exports during the first six months of this fiscal." Exports grew by 7.39 per cent during the first half of this financial year at 17.46 billion dollars. In rupee terms exports grew by 14.68 per cent at Rs 13443.42 crore. On the other hand, imports rose by 5.6 per cent at 22.47 billion dollars during the first half of 1999-2000. (UNI) |
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Cotton yield to double in North West plains CHANDIGARH, Nov 2: After a virtual three-year cotton eclipse, Punjab and Haryana are expected to harvest a good cotton crop this year as average yields in the North West plains are estimated to double compared to last year. In Punjab, the cotton production is likely to be about one million bales this season as against 5.95 lakh bales last year. The average yield of cotton this time is estimated at 380 kg per hectare compared to last year’s 180 kg per hectare, according to official statistics. Similarly, the average yield of cotton in neighbouring Haryana is recorded this time at 398 kg per hectare against 255 kg per hectare last year. This has resulted in expectations of at least eleven lakh bales this time in Haryana. The cotton belt in Haryana is spread over Sirsa, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bhiwani, Jind and some parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar, Rewari and Mahindergarh districts. While Punjab’s Bhatinda, Mansa, Faridkot and some areas of Ferozepur and Sangrur districts cultivate this industrial crop. Punjab Agriculture Director Dr Balkaran Singh told UNI that dry spell with little rainfall during monsoons was the main reason for the better production of cotton this year. Dr Singh said the less than normal rainfall during this monsoon helped farmers in controlling pests and American ball worm as the various pesticides used were not washed off. "Chemicals sprayed to control pest were not washed away this time due to less rainfall in the areas," he said. Even tough the average yield has increased more than two-fold, the total production would be little less than double due to decrease in the area in the entire North West cotton belt. According to Punjab Agriculture Department’s Joint Director (Cotton) Dr P S Pannu, the area under cotton cultivation has decreased to 4.65 lakh hectares against last year’s 5.62 lakh hectares in the state. The cotton fields in Haryana have also gradually shrinked from 652 hectares in 1996-97 to 510 hectares this season. Dr Pannu said the area under cotton cultivation was decreasing for the past three years due to less production, forcing the farmers to shift to paddy cultivation. The farmers, however, had followed instruction from the agriculture department for sowing cotton seed before May 15 which also helped in better production, Dr Pannu said. According to cotton expert Prof R K Grover of the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), the cotton growers, who diversified to grow paddy in the cotton belt due to low yield of balls in past two years, would now come back to cotton cultivation. The yield of cotton in Punjab has faced deep decline in the past three years. The production fell from 19.25 lakh bales in 1996-97 to 5.95 bales in the last year’s procurement season. It was 9.41 lakh bales in 1997-98. The cotton production in Punjab was at one time as high as 24.69 lakh bales in 1991-92 with an average yield of 584 kg per hectare. The increase in the yield this time has encouraged the private traders, Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and markfed to tighten their belts for procurement. The markfed, a cooperative giant which markets agro-products of Punjab, has set a target of purchasing 50,000 bales of cotton from the mandis spread over Abohar, Fazilka, Bhatinda, Sunam and Kotkapura. The markfed would also complete its target from Ganganagar cotton mandis in Rajasthan. The markfed last year was able to purchase about 16,000 bales due to low yield of the crop in the entire Northern cotton belt. According to markfed officials, quality of cotton this time was better than last year. The markfed has set its eyes on the J-34 cotton variety both for domestic and export purpose. Mr M S Grewal, Managing Director of Spinfed Cooperative, was hopeful that the increased yield of cotton this time would give boost to its three cooperative spinning mills each situated at Abohar, Bhatinda and Goindwal. "These three mills, which are currently at loss making will get a boost if the cotton production improves gradually in the next season as well," he said. (UNI) |
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McKinsey report to be submitted on Dec 17 NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Global consultants McKinsey’s will submit its report on ways to strengthen Indian software industry will be submitted by mid-December, Mr Dewang Mehta, president, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), said today. "We have already received a draft report and discussions are on to finalise recommendations. The report will be submitted on December 17," Mr Mehta told reporters here. The report is expected to give suggestions to the Government, Software Companies and Associations on how to sustain and improve the current over 50 per cent annual sectorial growth. "It will give recommendations to even small and medium sized companies to move up value chain in the industry," he added. It will also enable companies who have not yet taken adequate transistion steps from Y2K related services to keep up their own respective growth rates. Meanwhile, the Association has asked the Government to improve privacy laws in the country by suitably amending the copyright act. It will help the industry get data processing projects from the European Union. The EU recently had brought out a directive for European companies not to outsource from those countries where privacy laws are absent. Currently, data processing project revenues comprise about ten per cent of total software exports. Mr Mehta said no Indian IT company is expected to list at any of the overseas stock exchanges before January 2000 as "sentiments are not great due to Y2K fears". However, the Association expects at least 20 more Indian infotech companies to be listed on overseas stock exchanges in the next 36 months. (UNI) |
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Software export revenues grow by 58 p at Rs 8060 cr NEW DELHI, Nov 2: The software export revenues grew by 58.3 per cent at Rs 8,060 crore for the first half of the current fiscal as against Rs 5,090 crore during the comparable period of 1998-99 even as Y2K related projects are declining. Software exports of 1.87 billion dollars now form about 10.5 per cent of India’s total exports of 17.4 billion dollars during April-September 1999 as against 8.5 per cent during the first half of the last fiscal, Mr Dewang Mehta, president, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), said. Addressing a press conference on NASSCOM survey on the export performance of the Indian software industry here today, Mr Mehta said software exports may cross revenues of Rs 17,000 crore (3.9 billion dollars) for the 1999-2000 fiscal. "The export revenues continue to grow over 50 per cent as the new segments Ef e-commerce solutions, it enabled services have brought in almost 16 per cent this year as against 7.5 per cent of total software export revenues." The Y2K related revenues have gone down to 11 per cent from 19 per cent for the comparable six months, he added. The export revenues in the first half have come from providing application solutions in sectors like banking, manufacturing, process industry, infrastructure, Government and apparel industry. "The global spending for Y2K related software solutions in latter part of 1999-2000 is not expected to adversely affect the Indian industry’s export as many companies have started retraining their employees and are focussing on emerging areas of E-commerce, Euro, ERP, systems-on-chip and it enabled services," the NASSCOM survey has pointed out. Mr Mehta said that the whole industry will grow by over 55 per cent during 1999-2000 but some companies who may not have yet taken adequate steps of transition from Y2K "may have to quickly change their strategies to keep up their own respective growth rates". (UNI) |
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Dundee Bond Fund to be launched in India on Oct 11 CALCUTTA, Nov 2: Dundee Bond Fund, an open ended fixed income fund with two schemes— the Dundee Public Sector Bond Fund and the Dundee Corporate Bond Fund— will be launched in India on October 11 offering multiple income and investment options to investors. Sponsored by the leading foreign institutional investor Dundee Mutual Funds, a fully owned subsidiary of 15 billion dollar Dundee Bancrop International of Canada, both schemes aimed at providing the investors long term returns in leading public sector units and money market instruments of varying maturities while maintaining safety and liquidity. Speaking to newsmen here today about the prime features of the bond fund, the third in the series this year, Dundee Mutual Funds vice-president Anil Sahgal said like the previous two occasions which ensured good returns they hoped to oversubscribe the present issue also. About their proposed diversification programmes in near future, Mr Sahgal said apart from taking active interests in leading mineral based companies, they would like to enter the bullion market in a big way to help prevent large imports of gold in India. At present more than 13,000 tonnes of gold was available in India mostly in the form of jewellery and with proper recycling, there would be no need to import the yellow metal, Mr Sahgal said. We also propose to increase our presence in some major cities in India by this year end with an additional investment of nearly Rs 20 crores, Mr Sahgal said. (UNI) |
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MUMBAI, Nov 2: Selective approach to offering insurance cover to deposits with various financial institutions, risk based pricing of deposit insurance premium, withdrawing the function of credit guarantee from the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) and assigning to it a larger role in deposit insurance, assigning the role of liquidator and receiver to the deposit insurance corporation are some of the far-reaching recommendations made by the advisory group set up by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The group was set up to undertake a study of the existing system of deposit insurance in India and of the need for reforms in it as a crucial component of the financial sector reforms. The advisory group consisted of Mr Jagdish Kapoor, Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Chairman, Dr Y V Reddy, Deputy Governor of RBI, M G Bhide, former Chairman, Bank of India S H Khan, former Chairman, Industrial Development Bank of India, Dr Ganti Subramanyam, Director of NIMB, Dr Ajay Shah, Professor of IGIDR, Mr A Chandramouliswaran, Executive Director of Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation. The working group consisted of Mr V S N Murty, Chief General Manager of Department of Non-Banking Supervision, RBI Mr M R Das, Chief Manager (Economic Research) of State Bank of India, Mr Mathew Joseph, Deputy General Manager of ICICI, Mr J P Sharma, General Manager of DICGC, Mr K V Subha Rao, Deputy General Manager of Urban Banks Department, RBI and Mr D Ajit, Director, Department of Economic Analysis and Policy of RBI and completed the task under the guidance of the advisory group. The group has recommended that the function of credit guarantee might be withdrawn from the DICGC and a Deposit Insurance Corporation with a capital of Rs 500 crore to be fully contributed by the Reserve Bank be set up. The group has recommended that the corporation should have a board independent of nominees of insured entities and should comprise representatives of supervisors of the commercial and cooperative banks of fairly senior ranks and five directors to be nominated by the Reserve Bank. The group has recommended a selective approach to extension of deposit insurance cover to instituttions. It has suggested that while deposit insurance cover for banks would continue to be compulsory, it would not be obligatory for the corporation to provide. According to the group, banks which have not complied with capital adequacy requirements, entities with a camel rating of ‘C’ or below consistently for the past three years and development financial institutions should be excluded from deposit insurance coverage. As for the Non-Banking Finance Companies, the group has recommended that deposit insurance for these entities could be considered once these entities were adequately regulated and supervised and there was some degree of regulatory parity between them and the banks. It has recommended a review of the position with regard to offering deposit insurance to Non-Banking Financial Institutions after two years. The group has recommended no change in the present deposit insurance coverage which is Rs one lakh per depositor in the same right and capacity. It has however, suggested that deposits upto Rs 90,000 be covered at 100 per cent and deposits between Rs 90,000 and Rs one lakh be offered cover limited to 90 per cent. Thus introducing an element of co-insurance. The group has also recommended exclusion of certificates of deposit from the deposit insurance coverage as also deposits taken as cash collaterals and deposits created by transferring subordinated liabilities at least six months prior to bank failure or moratorium. (UNI) |
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Gold roll down further on reduce offtake NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Gold prices rolled down further on the bullion market today on reduced offtake coupled with weak outside advices and closed with losses. Silver also remained weak on stockists selling in the face of dried up demand. Marketmen said a weak trend in upcountry markets influenced the market sentiment to some extent. They said a steady trend in overseas market failed to boost the trading here. Traders said despite the ongoing festival season, the prices continued to seek lower levels on reduced offtake against steady arrivals. The volume of business was small. Standard gold and ornaments lost Rs.20 each at Rs.4560 and Rs.4410 per ten gram respectively. Sovereign was traded at previous level of Rs.3900 per piece of eight gram. Silver .999 (ready) declined by Rs.35 at Rs.7915 per kilo and weekly delivery by Rs.25 at Rs.7915 per kilo. Silver coins also dropped by Rs.100 at Rs.11,100/11,200 per 100 pieces. The following were today’s quotations: Silver .999 (ready 7915 and delivery 7915. Silver coins buyer 11,100 and seller 11,200. Standard gold 4560, ornaments 4410 and sovereign 3900. (PTI) |
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