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NEDFI takes safer route, goes to trade servicing GUWAHATI, Oct 4: Frustrated by the depressionery industrial climate of the northeastern region, the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd ......more FDA
orders seizure MUMBAI, Oct 4: Cadbury chocolates had a bitter taste today after the food and drugs administration directed seizure of the popular brand of chocolates .......more India’s
forex reserves MUMBAi, Oct 4: India’s foreign exchange reserves continued their climb buoyed by fresh inflows of US dollar 771 .....more ASEAN,
India to sign JAKARTA, Oct 4: ASEAN and India are to sign an agreement on the establishment of a free trade and investment area during the ASEAN summit .......more |
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GoM deliberates unified licensing, not to take hasty decision NEW DELHI, Oct 4: The Group of Ministers (GoM) on Telecom today began detailed discussion on the issue of universal licencing regime for basic and .....more SISI to organise programme on vendor development PATNA, Oct 4: Small Industries Service Institute (SISI) will organise a three-day national level vendor development programme-cum-exhibition......more NEW DELHI, Oct 4: A four-day international trade fair organised by Heimtextil India for home and household textiles and accessories opened here today. ....more Via launches new platform for vehicle computers NEW DELHI, Oct 4: Via technologies, developer of Silicon Chip Technologies and PC platform solutions, and Industry Technology Research .......more |
NEDFI takes safer route, goes to trade servicing GUWAHATI, Oct 4: Frustrated by the depressionery industrial climate of the northeastern region, the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFI) has taken a safer route to be in the business by extending its service to logistics, transport, infrastructure and trade sector. After years of bad experience with the industry, the NEDFI yesterday decided to go to trade sector to minimise its financial risk. The NEDFI hopes it would make marketing easier in the region for producers who could now look forward to improved support systems with fresh investments in transport and marketing outlets. The NEDFI shareholders in its eighth Annual General Meeting (AGM) held here yesterday, approved financing the transport sector and the super market, wholesale trade realizing that a thrust to movement of goods and marketing would meet the long standing requirements of all the eight states in the region. The Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) J P Saikia, while addressing the shareholders, expressed that so far the corporation had investments in areas like industrial projects, infrastructure, agri-horticulture plantation, medicinal plantation, sericulture plantation, poultry and dairy sector, aquaculture and animal husbandry projects. Inclusion of new areas of financing in transport and wholesale and super markets would add to the marketing muscle of producers. He was hopeful that it would have a multiplier effect on the entire economy of the region. He informed that during the year 2002-2003, the corporation approved assistance of Rs 63.64 crore to 131 units, spread out in almost every nook and corner of the region. Keeping pace with sanctions, NEDFI released a sum of Rs 51.10 crore during the same period. Cumulative loan approvals of NEDFI as on March 31, this year stood at Rs 299 crore and total disbursement amounted to Rs 189 crore. These approvals had helped financing 427 units spread all over the northeast. Till date, NEDFI assisted projects had contributed to total investments aggregating to Rs 636 crore and have generated direct employment for nearly 18,000 men and women. The CMD said as per the suggestion of Prime Minister, NEDFI had undertaken a target to release at least Rs 50 crore loans every year. This had been fulfilled for the third consecutive year, while remaining within prudential norms. He claimed that NEDFI had been building investor confidence and opening doors for fresh investment in the region. With its hand holding approach, the corporation has been working as a catalyst to generate employment, create income earning streams and wealth and help bring prosperity to the region, the CMD said. (UNI) |
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FDA orders seizure of Cadbury brand of chocolates MUMBAI, Oct 4: Cadbury chocolates had a bitter taste today after the food and drugs administration directed seizure of the popular brand of chocolates following complaints that some samples of the confectionery had been infested with worms. However, the company denied the charge and maintained that its chocolates were of good quality and free from infestation. "We have asked officials to seize the product from across the state," FDA Commissioner Uttam Khobragade told mediapersons here today. The FDA swung into action after aggrieved consumers from Suburban Andheri in north-west Mumbai lodged a complaint regarding the presence of worm from a packet bought in the locality. The said packet had been manufactured from a plant at Talegaon, near Pune. A press release issued by Cadbury said "the company has since checked the factory samples of this batch and has found them to be of good quality and free of infestation. The company therefore reiterates that its products leaving the factory is of good quality". "Cadbury chocolates reach out to 6,50,000 retailers directly and indirectly. Inspite of every care being taken at the manufacturing stage, chocolate is a food product that requires specific care and attention in storage", he said. "The company provides retailers with storage dispensers and visi-coolers to give adequate product protection. Additionally, every Cadbury product label mentions the care instruction. We believe by and large retailers follow the operating instructions and adhere to the required storage conditions", it said. "However, chocolates are susceptible to infestation if they are stored near grains and cereals or in unhygienic conditions", it added. (PTI) |
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India’s forex reserves cross USd 89 Bn MUMBAi, Oct 4: India’s foreign exchange reserves continued their climb buoyed by fresh inflows of US dollar 771 million to cross the USd 89 billion mark during the week ended September 26. The foreign exchange reserves of the country increased from USd 88,556 million to USd 89,327 million, Reserve Bank of India said in its weekly statistical supplement released here today. The foreign currency assets rose by USd 771 million at USd 85,603 million. The reserve tranche position with the international monetary fund saw a further addition of USd 14 million at USd 1,192 million in the reporting period under review. Gold reserves and special drawing rights were static at USd 3,720 million and USd four million. Loans and advances to Central Government had a nil balance while that to states decreased by Rs 109 crore at Rs 3,340 crore, the Apex Bank said. Aggregate deposits of scheduled commercial banks during the fortnight ended September 19 rose by Rs 2,961 crore (0.2 per cent) at Rs 13,77,334 crore. Bank credit was higher by Rs 2,642 crore (0.4 per cent) at Rs 7,35,546 crore. RBI said food credit in the fortnight declined by Rs 4,141 crore at Rs 37,465 crore while non-food credit rose by Rs 6,783 crore at Rs 6,98,081 crore. (PTI) |
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ASEAN, India to sign free trade agreement JAKARTA, Oct 4: ASEAN and India are to sign an agreement on the establishment of a free trade and investment area during the ASEAN summit scheduled to take place October 7-8, in Bali, an Indonesian official said here. "After nearly a year of preparation and studies, ASEAN and India have mutually agreed to sign the agreement," Pos M. Hutabarat, Director General of International Trade and Industrial Cooperation at Indonesia’s industry and trade ministry, said yesterday. He said an ASEAN ministerial meeting in Brunei Darussalam last September 22 discussed and adopted the idea to establish the ASEAN-India free trade and investment area. The ministers at the meeting instructed a senior economic officials meeting to form a task force to draw up a draft economic agreement between ASEAN and India, he added. "At first, ASEAN and India had different views on import duty reduction programs but ASEAN eventually agreed to include 36 and India 69 of their respective commodities in the programs," Pos said. ASEAN member countries aim to increase their trade with India from the current annual level of 10 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars in the next two years and to 30 billion dollars by 2007. In 1998, ASEAN-India trade reached a total value of US$6.97 billion, increased to USd 7.87 billion in 1999, USd9.77 billion in 2000 and US$9.88 billion in 2001. India wished to boost its trade with the regional association as part of its new "look east" policy. "The new phase of this policy is characterised by an expanded definition of `east’, extending from Australia to east Asia, with ASEAN at its core," External Affaris Minister Yashwant Sinha was quoted as saying. Last September 4, Indian and ASEAN economic ministers met in New Delhi to finalise the draft of the economic cooperation agreement for signing in Bali.Established in 1967, association of South East Asian nations groups Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar,Malaysia, the Philipines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. (PTI) |
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GoM deliberates unified licensing, not to take hasty decision NEW DELHI, Oct 4: The Group of Ministers (GoM) on Telecom today began detailed discussion on the issue of universal licencing regime for basic and cellular operators to thrash out a final solution regarding the contentious issue of allowing basic operators to start mobile srervices. "The dispute of WLL operators is linked to the issue of universal licence," Communications and Information Technology Minister Arun Shourie told reporters after the meeting. The group will further deliberate on the issue at its next meeting on October 12. After a two-and-a-half-hour meeting, Mr Shourie said,"we are proceeding with great deliberations and do not want to take hasty decisions." He said,"the idea is to enforce a uniformed licencing system. But a lot of deliberations are needed before taking a final decision. We have identified people who are violating the limited mobility norms." Besides Mr Shourie, the meeting was attended by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, Law Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister George Fernandes, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. The group is headed by the Finance Minister. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chairman Pradeep Baijal and HDFC chairam Deepak Parikh made a presenation before the group on the transition from the present licencing regime to the univeral licencing which involved issues of compensation and fees. The department of telecom circulated a note among the members of the group on shifting from the present licencing regime to the universal licencing system. On the issue of violation of limited mobility norms by some WLL (M) operators, Mr Shourie said the Government will exhaust all options to avoid litigation. The GoM has taken note of the violations by reliance infocomm and the issue will be referred to the cabinet. The telecom engineering Centre had presented a paper at the last GoM meeting on September 25, alleging that Reliance Infocomm was violating limited mobility norms. The charge was, however, denied by Reliance. The Telecom dispute settlement appellate tribunal had in its earlier majority order allowed basic operators to offer WLL (M) services, but directed the authorities to restrict the services within short distance calling area. In its judgement on September 27, TDSAT had permitted WLL (M) operators to use multiple switiching centres that allow these service providers to offer roaming services, but asked the Government to set up a task force to ensure that operators adhere to the licensing conditions. The GoM decided to set up a task force on the issue of providing additional spectrum to telecom service operators. The task force will also decide on allcoating funds to the Defence Ministry to upgrade its signalling system so that spectrum can be utilised optimally. Representatives of the DoT and the Defence Ministry will be part of the task force. The GoM also deliberated on extending rural telephony and decided to recommend to the Government to operationalise the universal service obligation fund. The details regarding the fund are to be worked out by the Finance Ministry and the Department of Telecom. (UNI) |
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SISI to organise programme on vendor development PATNA, Oct 4: Small Industries Service Institute (SISI) will organise a three-day national level vendor development programme-cum-exhibition here from October 7 to give boost to marketing of SSI products. Union Small Scale Industries Minister C P Thakur said all major buyers, including Directorate General Quality Assurance, Ministries of Defence and Railways, National Thermal Power Corporation, Bharat Electronics Ltd and Directorate General of Supplies and Disposal had been invited to participate in the programme. Talking to UNI here yesterday, he said the programme would provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs to interact with the buyers for exploring avenues for marketing their products. The ministry of SSI was implementing the price and purchase preference scheme and had reserved 358 products for exclusive purchase from SSI units, he said adding the small scale sector had the potential to produce many items now being imported by defence and railways. Simultaneously, a seminar would be organised on October 9 to dwell upon the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement and problems related to credit flow to SSI sector, the minister said. He pointed out that WTO agreement provided for protection to domestic industries till India attained 3.25 per cent share of world trade or per capita income reached the level of US 1,000 dollar and emphasised on taking advantage of the said clause for boosting the economy. Product and Process Development Centre (PPDC), Meerut, will hold a two-day awareness campaign on manufacturing of sports goods on October 20 and 21 next at Patna to be followed by a month long entrepreneurship development programme on sports goods. Mr Tthakur would inaugurate two awareness-cum-training prgrammes at Naubatpur and Bikram on October 13 and 14 respectively, organised to impart training to farmers in the techniques of cultivating and processing aromatic and herbal plants. Experts from fragrance and flavour development centre, Kannauj would also participate in the programme. (UNI) |
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NEW DELHI, Oct 4: A four-day international trade fair organised by Heimtextil India for home and household textiles and accessories opened here today. Inaugurating the fair, the Regional Director of Frankfurt Trade Fair, India, Ms Shammi Nagpal said the fair would provide a great oppourtinity for the domestic exporters to have an indepth knowledge about the latest fashion trends globally. She said a large number of foreign buyers, designers and product developers who would participate in the meet would be advising the Indian exporters on what they should make for exports. She claimed that over the past five years Frankfurt trade fair have been able to help the Indian exporters with immense export-related inputs which helped them to improve their business many fold. (UNI) |
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Via launches new platform for vehicle computers NEW DELHI, Oct 4: Via technologies, developer of Silicon Chip Technologies and PC platform solutions, and Industry Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan have jointly developed and launched Via Edens telematic platform for vehicle computers. The new Via Edens telematic platform made in small form allows compact new power designs for computers that can cope with extreme thermal conditions challenging vehicle computer design market. This enables a new breed of digitallz intelligent telematics szstems compatible across various markets, including the consumer electronics and digital media segments. The platform has improved capabilities and features including a real time operating system such as Microsoft Windows CE, an entertainment centre for radio, TV, digital audio, video plazback and gaming, a communication and information centre for GPS navigation, telecommunication and internet browsing. (UNI) |
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Self-declared bankruptcies in Singapore hit a record SINGAPORE, Oct 4: More than 500 people have declared themselves bankrupt in Singapore so far this year, a record number, official figures showed on Saturday. The sharp jump of over 20 times from 1999 represents 14.7 per cent of the total number of bankruptcies filed in 2003, according to the ministry of law data. A ministry spokesman told the business times many self-declared bankrupts are "in the red zone", meaning they do not repay their debts regularly or make no payments at all. "Green zone" bankrupts regularly make payments toward their debts and cooperate with the official assignee. A 1999 legal amendment allows the assignee, a public servant and a Court officer, to discharge a bankrupt after three years of good conduct. Hong Kong amended its Bankruptcy laws in 1998 so that bankrupts can be discharged automatically after four years instead of eight. The number of self-petitions for bankruptcy in Hong Kong rose from 33 in 1997 to 23,655 in in 2002, the report said. (DPA) |
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N Korea devalues won as reforms continue - Report TOKYO, Oct 4: North Korea, which is embroiled in a diplomatic standoff over its nuclear arms programme, recently devalued its currency as part of a fresh push for economic reforms, a Japanese newspaper said on Saturday. The report follows this week’s comments by a senior South Korean official, who said that North Korea seems committed to economic reforms. The famine-stricken communist country had launched some reforms in July last year in what appeared to be the first major changes to the centralised, closed system in half a century. North Korea this summer began exchanging the won using an official rate of about 900 won to the dollar, down sharply from a rate of 150 won fixed after a devaluation last year, and also switched to floating exchange rates, the Asahi Shimbun said. New currency exchange offices have been set up in various areas of the capital Pyongyang and are manned by Central Bank personnel, the Asahi said in a story from Beijing quoting a source knowledgeable about North Korea. Diplomats in Pyongyang had said in August last year that North Korea had devalued the won to 150 per dollar from around 2.15 per dollar as part of a series of reforms designed to introduce more market driven prices. North Korea decided on the latest steps due to a widening disparity between official and black market rates, Asahi said. South Korea’s Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun said on Tuesday that after sending hundreds of North Koreans to China and Europe in recent years to learn about free markets, Pyongyang is now dispatching delegations to Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam. "This is clear evidence that North Korea is really interested in economic reform and that they have decided to pursue economic reform," he told the Korea society in New York. Despite such signs of change, however, international concerns over North Korea have been growing due to its nuclear ambitions. North Korea said on Friday it had successfully finished reprocessing some 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in June and had switched technology to enhance its use of plutonium extracted from the rods for possible atomic weapons. The United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan are seeking to draw North Korea back to the negotiating table for more talks on ending its nuclear programme. There was an inconclusive first round of talks in Beijing in August. (AGENCIES) |
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Trade with India, China sideline Suu Kyi at ASEAN BALI, INDONESIA, Oct 4: Officials preparing for a summit of Southeast and North Asian leaders are focussing on boosting and balancing trade with India and China, relegating the issue of freedom for Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi to the back burner. India would sign a framework agreement with association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) at its summit next week, leading to a full free trading area within a decade, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said last week. Its negotiation has been rapid, overtaking the planned China agreement and signalling the importance of the deal as India has watched China’s trade with ASEAN grow dramatically over the last decade. ASEAN also wants to counterbalance China’s growing economic clout in the region by boosting ties with India. During talks today, members of ASEAN also voiced concern about the North Korean nuclear crisis and said South Korea and China had indicated another round of talks on the standoff could take place soon. Top diplomats from South Korea and China briefed their colleagues in the 10-member ASEAN on the last round of talks in Beijing in August that also involved North Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia and said they had underscored the wide differences between Pyongyang and Washington. However, Chinese officials told the meeting, another round of talks on the nuclear crisis could take place in the near future in Beijing. Diplomats have said it could be held in November. "We just pray for it because we see a trend that the problem on the Korean Peninsula can be resolved through talks without the use of weapons," said top Indonesian diplomat Makarim Wibisono. Regional security as well as trade dominated discussions in the runup to a meeting of Foreign Ministers tomorrow and Monday and a summit of leaders of ASEAN joined by South Korea, China and Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday. Accelerating the process of negotiating an agreement with China on an economic framework for a free trade pact was under discussion with the aim of establishing such a zone within 10 years, officials said. There was little mention of Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest after an operation last week. She had earlier been held at a secret location after being detained on May 30. ASEAN officials had previously said the situation in Myanmar was becoming an increasing embarrassment for the group. But today, officials would only say that her transfer to house arrest from detention was a positive development. In terms of the talks with China, several items would be put on a fast-track for liberalisation, one Indonesian diplomat said, but declined to give details. Officials are keen to stress that the group that includes such prosperous economies as Singapore as well as tiny, underdeveloped laos wants to focus on economic integration at this summit. The action plan for an ASEAN economic community, a brainchild of wealthier members such as Singapore and Thailand, has been completed, with 11 sectors to be put on a fast track towards free trade, including electronics and wood-based industries. Officials have declined to give details of how the fast-tracking would work. However, a report commissioned by ASEAN from business consultants Mckinsey has highlighted lack of integration, non-tariff barriers and disparate policies that favour the competitiveness of single nations at the expense of the entire group as among problems the bloc must face. ASEAN has a total population of 500 million and combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 700 billion dollars while total trade is around 720 billion dollars. It groups Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand. (AGENCIES) |
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