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| HPCL holds 2nd lucky draw for customers Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Nov 25: As a part of its sales promotion programme, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL).........more FDI
flows in India may NEW DELHI, Nov 25: Despite India emerging as a favourite destination for foreign direct investment.....more Citi
group upbeat on NEW YORK, Nov 25: Citigroup, the world’s biggest financial company by market value.....more 12 vanaspati manufacturing units,including 8 in WB, closed KOLKATA, Nov 25: Vanaspati manufacturers’ association (east zone), the apex ......more |
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Govt to kick off national e-governance plan NEW DELHI, Nov 25: The Government today said it would soon kick off a national e-governance plan to boost IT-spending in state sectors and remove ....more ONGC
to drill four wells MUMBAI, Nov 25: The state-owned ONGC Ltd plans to drill at least four oil wells — under the ambitious deep water campaign ‘Sagar.....more India makes fresh bid to bridge gaps with big blocks NEW DELHI, Nov 25: Leaving the failed Cancun WTO ministerial meeting behind, India has begun bilateral talks ......more Price
rise higher in NEW DELHI, Nov 25: Kolkata and Mumbai have recorded the highest rise in the ...more |
HPCL holds 2nd lucky draw for customers Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Nov 25: As a part of its sales promotion programme, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), second largest marketing & refinery company, today held second lucky draw here today. SSP Jammu, Dr Kamal Saini was the chief guest while S K Soni Regional Manager of the Company, at Jammu presided over the function organised at M/S Jay Kay Gas Co./ H P Petrol Pump near Asia crossing, Jammu. The first prize which was a Hero Honda motorcycle—was won by one Ajay Kumar of Kathua having coupen No. 141177. Refrigerator was won by Sanjeev Bakshi-having coupen No. 39907. Music system by Kamal Singh Coupen No. 272573, Hero Cycle— coupen No. 92359, Sewing machine -Ravinder Sharma —coupen No. 149674, Desert Cooler—coupen No. 89999, Suit Case —27204 etc. About fifteen prizes were announced and several were distributed on the spot. The winners of the first draw had also arrived to get their prizes. The SSP distributed the prizes. While speaking on the occasion, the SSP said that scheme was good for the sales promotion but at the same time he suggested the Company officials to provide the products- petrol and diesel to the customers up to their satisfaction and cooperate police in containing adulteration. Mr S K Soni said that aim of launching this gift scheme was to delight customers and also as a part of company’s sales promotiosn. He expressed his happiness to announce winners names for Idd Bonanza. D. K. Batra, the HP products dealer was also present on the occasion besides other special invitees. |
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FDI flows in India may drop this fiscal: A T Kearney NEW DELHI, Nov 25: Despite India emerging as a favourite destination for foreign direct investment, inflows into the country may see a dip this fiscal as compared to last year, according to global consultancy firm A T Kearney. A T Kearney INC Managing Director (US) Paul a Laudicina told UNI that many factors, including domestic, would be responsible for the decline from last year’s 3.4 billion dollars. "Globally too FDI flows are expected to be flat at last fiscal’s 651 billion dollars level mainly because of excessive caution on the part of investors. "After the September 11 attacks on the US, nearly one third of global investors view security concerns and terrorism among the most critical risks to their firms as well as operations," Mr Laudicina said. To drive his point, he pointed out to the inflows this year. "In the first quarter of this fiscal, only 350 million dollars came in as FDI against 1.65 billion dollars in the same period last year. "Though FDI picked up in July and touched 180 million dollars as compared to 150 million in July ‘02, but overall I think the bad start is going to weigh heavily on the total inflows in FY 04," he said. In its FDI confidence index for 2003, A T Kearney had raised India’s position by nine points to number six. "However, this elevation does not mean that inflows would be increasing immediately as the corporates we surveyed said they would making these investments over the next three years. "The slowdown we are witnessing now are also because of decisions on investment taken about two years back when India was low down the priority list of foreign investors," Mr Laudicina said. On the domestic front, he listed difficult bureaucracy and slowdown of reforms among the top two problems impeding FDI growth. "Also, poor infrastructure was one of the reasons listed by corporates for shying away from making investments in India," he said. (UNI) |
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Citi group upbeat on India eyes 25 pc banking market NEW YORK, Nov 25: Citigroup, the world’s biggest financial company by market value, has said it is upbeat about India and will make investment to capture 25 per cent of the Indian banking market. "India is important for US and its growth is amazing. Our aim is to capture 25 per cent of the Indian banking market over an extended period of time," chairman and chief executive officer of global corporate and investment banking group Charles Prince said at a conference here. He said private and foreign banking has been a recent phenomenon in India, where state-owned banks still dominate the sector in which Citibank is keen on expanding its presence and capture more market share. Citibank has identified five or six countries for their economic potential and India is among them, he said. The theme of the conference, organised by the Indus entrepreneurs (tie), was business process outsourcing. Mr Prince said: "Some of the buzz about outsourcing could be described as hype. Our group, a captive player of outsourcing in India, reposes trust in the country’s economy." However, he warned that India’s economic growth could be hampered if markets were not opened up, social unrest worsened and there was no measure to ensure transparency. India’s economic growth is expected to be 7 per cent this fiscal after hovering between 4.5 and 6 per cent over the past few years and it is a good sign, he added. Citibank, a 200-year-old financial institution, has presence in more than 100 countries. In India, where it has been for about 100 years, the bank has 25 branches in 18 cities. Major brand names under Citigroup’s trademark red umbrella include Citi cards, Citifinancial, Citimortgage, Citiinsurance, primerica, diners club, Citigroup asset management, the Citigroup private bank and citicapital. Mr Prince said the people of Indian origin and non resident Indians have played a major role in the country’s progress. "NRIs are an extraordinary demographic feature," he said referring to the 20 million overseas Indians. Ge CIS (Capital International Services) global president and chief executive officer Pramod Bhasin also delivered an address. Apart from two panel discussion and the keynote address on which outsourcing, four panel discussions were held on trends in money flows, taking to the next level, pharma/biotech landscape and current job market. Mr Vivek Agrawal, fellow of the Mckinsey global institute Rajiv Lall, managing director of Warburg Pincus Max Michaels, Managing partner of cryztal caital Ashok Vaswani, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer of Citi cards and B Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam computer services were among the panelists. The weekend conference was sponsored by the tie tristate chapter covering New York, New Jersey and connecticut. (UNI) |
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12 vanaspati manufacturing units,including 8 in WB, closed KOLKATA, Nov 25: Vanaspati manufacturers’ association (east zone), the apex body of the Vanaspati manufacturing companies of eastern India, today announced the indefinite closure of all the 12 Vanaspati manufacturing units,including 8 in the state, due to unviable business conditions in West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar. Announcing this here today, Mr Kunal Banerjee, chairman, Vanaspati Manufacturers’ Association (east zone), said the adverse impacts of the bilateral trade treaty/free trade agreement with neighbouring nepal, precisely cheap imports from the country, forced the association to close the units. Mr Banerjee said their repeated representations to the State and Central Governments in this regard went totally unnoticed. The units, which have gone for an indefinite closure, are Kusum products in Rishra, Rasoi in Banganagar, M P Glycem in Haldia, Kanchan oils industries limited in Jhargram, vegetable products limited in Belgharia, Swastik refineries in Howrah, Madhav Solvex in Midnapore, paceman promotion in Dankuni, Mihijam in Jharkhand, Pataliputra in Bihar and Brar and Shivani in Orissa. Mr Banerjee said the other segments, which would suffer the detrimental impact of the Indo-Nepal treaty, were halwais, bakeries and fast foods. He informed that as a fall-out of this closure, West Bengal would suffer the loss of an investment of Rs 363 crore. The closure also marks impending unemployment of a total of 8000 direct and indirect employees of this industry, Mr Banerjee observed. (UNI) |
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Govt to kick off national e-governance plan NEW DELHI, Nov 25: The Government today said it would soon kick off a national e-governance plan to boost IT-spending in state sectors and remove fiscal imbalances in hardware imports. "We have made a presentation to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the e-governance plan and identified 7-8 areas where it could be implemented," it minister Arun Shourie told mediapersons after addressing a seminar on ICT at the world economic forum-CII organised India Economic Summit here. It Ssecretary K K Jaiswal said at the seminar that the Government would soon kick off the plan. Mr Shourie disclosed that it is not essential to start e-governance projects at one go in every Government sector. As such, 7-8 areas at both the Central and State levels are identified. While he did not disclose the areas where the plan would be implemented, Mr Shourie said the Directorate General of Foreign Trade and Customs and Excise Departments are already implementing online filing of proposals and returns, respectively. While the Customs and Excise Departments allow electronic filing of returns, one has to go to the department with a floppy to do so, he regretted. On reducing duties on hardware imports to increase the computer penetration in the country, Mr Jaiswal said fiscal anomalies would soon be addressed. He did not disclose the exact fiscal sops that the Government would offer. Mr Shourie disclosed that Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has agreed to extend the permission for duty free imports of used computers for literacy programmes for informal sectors as well. Earlier, the permission was extended from Government-run schools to public schools. Since 90 per cent of literacy programme is conducted outside schools, the facility would be given to informal sector as well, he said and pointed out that companies like IBM discards 50,000 computers in a year. Mr Shourie expressed the hope that contract Labour Act would not be extended to it sector as reported in a section of the media as it requires workforce on a temporary basis. The act was conceived at different point of time to safeguard the interests of landless labour, the factor which do not exist in it industry. (UNI) |
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ONGC to drill four wells under ‘Sagar Sammridhi’ in current season MUMBAI, Nov 25: The state-owned ONGC Ltd plans to drill at least four oil wells — under the ambitious deep water campaign ‘Sagar Sammridhi’ beginning from November 30 — during the current season, according to informed sources. The current season, according to ONGC, beginning from November 30 this year, would last until the onset of next monsoon. To begin with, ONGC would kick-start the deep water drilling campaign with the drilling of first well in the Gulf of Kutch on November 30 at location GKDW-AA-1 in 1800 meters of water. For this, ONGC has roped in the services of drillship ‘belford dolphin’, which arrived in Mumbai on November 14 and docked at 20 nautical miles of the western offshore waters. The second well was to be drilled later in the Krishna Godavari basin, adjacent to the recent gas find of Reliance group, in accordance with the names of the wells and location released by the Petroleum Ministry backed by its seismic findings. At the same time, the Petroleum Ministry was still to release the names of other two wells (and locations) that were to be taken up during the current season by ONGC. ONGC officials also maintained that the drilling of the second well, per se, itself would not be an immediate priority for ONGC considering its current preoccupation with the first well in the Gulf of Kutch. The drillship ‘belford dolphin’ docked in Mumbai since the last 10 days is the fifth generation ship equipped with the state-of-the-art drilling system with DP3 class rating and is capable of drilling in water depths up to 3,000 meters. It is interesting to note that this rig, which is scheduled to spud its first well in Gulf of Kutch, would be drilling in water depths up 1860 metres and thereafter, another 6000 metres for crude. ‘Sagar Sammriddhi’ is the largest ever deep water exploration programme ever undertaken by any single operator worldwide, claims ONGC. Further, ONGC plans to drill 47 wells in next five years through deployment of three deep water rigs. During the five years’ plan, it plans to spend Rs 3600 crore in Gujarat to drill 177 exploration and 347 development wells. That apart, ONGC has plans to redevelop 40 year-old oil-fields in Gujarat, and for which it will be making an investment of Rs 1500 crore expected to obtain additional recovery from these fields with the help of world class technology. (UNI) |
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India makes fresh bid to bridge gaps with big blocks NEW DELHI, Nov 25: Leaving the failed Cancun WTO ministerial meeting behind, India has begun bilateral talks with both the European Union and the US to bridge differences on the contentious issues of farm subsidy to break the deadlock sooner than later. "We have already held talks with the EU and would have bilateral negotiations with the US on agriculture. We believe there has to be and there will be a breakthrough," Special Secretary in the Commerce Ministry, incharge of the trade policy division Mr S N Menon said at the meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry and the world economic forum here last evening. Asserting that the G-20 alliance on agriculture against the EU and the US was intact, Mr Menon said India would not like the collapse of trade talks at Cancun to adversely affect sits bilateral relations with the major trading powers of the world. India continues be believe in the rule-based multilateral trading system but at the same time it would depend on the bilateral arrangemente the one initiated with the ASEAN countries. "But would feed on each other, he said. India’s efforts to bridge differences with the major trading blocs of the US and the EU assume significance in the wake of the general council of the world trade council meeting in Geneva from December 15,2003. "We want to restart the dialogue without rancour," the Special Secretary, who heads the WTO division in the Commerce Ministry said. Mr Menon said India was ready for give and take as well provided a "fair agreement" was forthcoming. While farmers’ subsidy is a sensitive political issue in the EU and the US, subsistence farming is equally important for India, Mr Menon said. The country needs time for reforms in the agriculture sector since the reforms could only follow infrastructure development. Earlier, Sri Lankan Minister for Consumer Affairs Ravi Karunanayake said the Cancun talks failed because of suspicion between the north and the south. Besides,’’ too little was given (by the developed countries) too late,’’ he said. There was quite a bit of argument between two leading industry representatives from Belgium and India. While Philippe De Buck, secretary-general, union of industrial and employers confederation of Europe, said he did not know the stand of the Indian industry on investment, Chairman and Managing Director and co-Chair of the India economic summit Rahul Bajaj said, the position of the domestic industry was fairly clean. "We do not discriminate between the foreign companies and the Indian companies in so far as the post-establishment rules are concerned. However, in regard to pre-establishment we would like to set rules for ourselves. Yes I do want caps in certain sectors but not for always." Mr Bajaj said. The panelists at the session on ‘WTO: The road ahead after Cancun" agreed that it would be impossible for the Doha round to complete on schedule by 2004 end. However, efforts must be made to go forward on the round which could according to estimates, bring benefits worth 453 billion euro, must of it going to the developing countries. (UNI) |
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Price rise higher in Kolkata, Mumbai lower in Chennai, Delhi NEW DELHI, Nov 25: Kolkata and Mumbai have recorded the highest rise in the consumer price index in October 2003 among the metros, data released today by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) show. While the two cities recorded a five-point rise in the All India Consumer Price Index for urban non-manual employees (CPI-UNME), Delhi and Chennai witnessed just a one-point increase in the index. The index for Kolkata went up from 382 points in September to 387 in October, it rose from 411 to 416 in Mumbai, from 500 to 501 in Chennai and from 429 to 430 in Delhi. At the major group level, the index as compared to the previous month has increased by 1.22 per cent in the case of food, beverages and tobacco. At the sub-group level, the index for vegetables rose 6.74 per cent whereas the index for pulses went up 2.63 per cent. (UNI) |
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Bahrain co wins BD 25 million reclamation contract DUBAI, Nov 25: Al Ghanah contracting, which has technical collaboration with the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), has won the Bahraini Dinar 25 million work for dredging, reclamation and shoreline protection involving 28m cubic metres of dredging over 15 months starting January next year. "We are proud to have associated with the DCI, which is equipped with the most advanced technology and has one of the largest and modern dredging fleets in the world," managing director Jameel Al Ghanah told the Gulf Daily news. "Under a charter party agreement, the DCI will send on lease to Bahrain three dredgers along with expert staff, who will provide the technical know-how for the prestigious project," he said. One of the main sub-contractors, Jameel Ali Bin Ebrahim, said this was the first major contract of its kind to be won by a Bahraini firm having technical collaboration with an Indian company. "It is a major breakthrough in our collaboration with India, which is known for its time-honoured relationship with Bahrain," he said. While such contracts were earlier won by international companies from the west, the Government decided to honour local firms and make use of their expertise. "This will result in a positive situation where our money will remain in Bahrain and will be reinvested for development projects in the kingdom," Mr Ebrahim said. (UNI) |
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Bhavnagar-Mumbai jet airways flight skids off runway MUMBAI, Nov 25: A Bhavnagar-Mumbai Jet Airways flight with 53 passengers on board today skidded off the runway shortly after landing at 1045 Hrs at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport here. All the passengers were safe, Airport Director Sudhir Kumar said. The runway has been closed and the secondary runway is being used for the air traffic, he added. (UNI) |
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Itochu in medicine tie-up with China’s Sanjiu TOKYO, Nov 25: Japanese trading house Itochu corp said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement with China’s Sanjiu enterprise group to form a joint venture in China to produce ingredients for traditional Chinese herbal medicines. Under the agreement, Sanjiu, China’s top drug maker, will also manufacture antibiotics for Itochu and Itochu will export generic drugs to China, an Itochu spokeswoman said. Sanjiu enterprise’s listed arm is Sanjiu Medical Pharmaceutical Co. (AGENCIES) TRAI chief assures 100 million mobile telephones by 2005 MUMBAI, Nov 25: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman Pradip Baijal said that the estimates for the year 2005 are about 100 million mobile phones. Mr Baijal was speaking here yesterday at a summit on the telecom policy organised by the young entrepreneurs’ society (yes) - the youth wing of All India Association of Industries (AIAI), International Management Institute (IMI) and School of Convergence (SoC). "Since the announcement of the National Telecom Policy, the first round registered seven million telephone connections whereas the last seven months of this year have recorded 14 million telephone connections which accorded 100 per cent growth", Mr Baijal said. "Yet India is far from equal to China. China has more mobile phone connection vis-a-vis fixed line users, then why not in India", asked Mr Baijal. Mr Baijal said, "nothing comes free. The regulator has to be pro-active. TRAI’s role as regulator is to provide an effective regulatory frame work and adequate safeguards to ensure fair competition and protection of consumer interests. However, every action has criticism as also in the case of unified licensing under the telcom policy which has been announced. The gainers are the consumers. The aggressive competition results into growth of wealth". "The telecom tangle was created by the Government first when the license fee was reduced from Rs 20000 crore to Rs 5000 crore. The second tangle was created in the year 2001. Now the unified licensing is to take the path forward which also means the total convergence of the telecom system. Within the next six months, all the services would see convergence", said Mr Baijal. (UNI) |
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