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Intel eyes Asia, and China, for factory expansion CHANDLER, ARIZONA, Dec 17: Intel corp plans to expand its manufacturing operations in China, and will strongly ......more Govt commited to fulfilling promise made by Vajpayee: Pawar NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Government is committed to fulfilling the promise made to the people by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about ......more National
gas pipeline NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The proposed national gas pipeline policy, for which draft was issued more than a year ago, is likely to be delayed .....more Hyundai to invest 50 mln to set up mobile MFG plant in India NEW DELHI, Dec 17: Korean conglomerate Hyundai today said it will invest 50 million dollars over the next five years to set ......more |
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NEW DELHI, Dec 17: Inflation fell for the second consecutive week to 7.02 per cent for the week ended December 4, mainly due to cheaper primary and fuel products. ........more Offshoring
to India saves NEW DELHI, Dec 17: Around 15 per cent of IT jobs for US companies will be performed in India by 2010, helping. ....more Govt plans comprehensive package for uplift of coffee growers NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Government is planning to come out with a comprehensive package for the upliftment of the coffee growers.....more Rlys incur Rs 400 crore extra expenditure due to steel price hike NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Indian Railways have incurred extra expenditure of .......more |
Intel eyes Asia, and China, for factory expansion CHANDLER, ARIZONA, Dec 17: Intel corp plans to expand its manufacturing operations in China, and will strongly consider China and its asian neighbors for the site of its next multi-billion-dollar factory, an executive said on Thursday. While it assembles and tests chips in China and Malaysia, intel has yet to build a full-fledged chip factory outside of Europe and the United States. Asia’s time may come in as soon as five years, said Robert Baker, intel’s senior vice president in charge of manufacturing, as the world’s largest chip maker looks for an edge in serving the region’s fast-growing economies. "I’d like us to continue to grow our manufacturing operations in China," Baker said in an interview. "It’s obviously going to be a big market for us." China is the world’s second-largest market for personal computers and is expected to be the world’s third-largest economy in a matter of years. Last week IBM agreed to sell its personal computer business to China’s biggest PC maker, Lenovo Group Ltd. Before committing to building an advanced factory at a new site, which can cost upward of 2 billion each, intel would look to save costs by considering upgrades to existing factories in the southwest United States, Ireland and elsewhere, Baker said. Eventually, building on so-called greenfield sites — where the company has no other manufacturing presence — will make sense, especially in Asia, where intel can take advantage of closer links to local markets, Baker said. "We’ll look for another greenfield site sometime in five to seven years," he said. "probably, if you look at the growth rates and innovation, maybe a little bit sooner." He listed Singapore and the Shanghai vicinity in China as having shown promise, and noted that Taiwan has already proven itself to be a leading center of chip production. But he said any decisions on a greenfield site would take into consideration a variety of factors, including export restrictions and infrastructure. Intel has made heavy investments in China already, opening a chip testing and assembly plant in Shanghai and building another in the interior city of Chengdu. Intel also assembles chips in Malaysia and Costa Rica. Beyond being the manufacturing hub for the world, China’s domestic consumer economy has blossomed in its own right. Virtually every major chip maker in the world has some production or development links with the country. But political concerns, including the export of high-level technology to China, could complicate plans to expand production there. Baker said he had yet to ask US authorities whether building an advanced factory in the country would violate export control laws. On the positive side, Baker said he has been impressed with the company’s 5,000-or-so people who work for his group in China. "I’m happy with our organization in China," he said. "We’ve been able to recruit very good employees and they’ve done a good job. We’re able to hire some great people." (AGENCIES) |
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Govt commited to fulfilling promise made by Vajpayee: Pawar NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Government is committed to fulfilling the promise made to the people by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about increasing the horticulture output within four years and the Agriculture Ministry is working to execute the promise, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today. The minister told the Rajya Sabha during question hour that the total losses in the post-harvest period in agriculture production, horticulture and milk production were to the tune of Rs 50,000 crore per year. Of this, one percent was in milk production, 10 percent in foodgrains and 30-40 percent in horticulture. The reason for the losses was lack of adequate facilities for food processing units, he said and added that the Government was exploring new facilities and technologies to minimise the losses and encourage such facilities. (UNI) |
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National gas pipeline policy likely to be delayed NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The proposed national gas pipeline policy, for which draft was issued more than a year ago, is likely to be delayed further as it might be scurtinised by a group of experts. The pipeline policy envisages setting up of a national gas grid and the draft policy enable GAIL India to set up grid. Comments and suggestions have already been scuritinised by the Petroleum Ministry but a cabinet note so far not been finalised because of certain reservations expressed by GAIL, which wants that the remaining portion of the gas grid should be set up by it. GAIL has proposed to lay around 8,000 kms pipeline involving a cost of Rs 18,000 crore but the plan could not be finalised because of delay in formulating the policy. Mr Prashanto Banerjee, chairman and managing director of GAIL, told reporters that they held discussions with different departments including with Finance Ministry on the issue. "I believe that the Government is likely to set up an expert group to study the issues involved in the policy , he said. Defending the gail decision to favour the monopoly as gas carrier, he said GAIL is not opposed to sharing capacity with private players. But if more players were allowed, the fixation of tarrif of carrying gas will be a problem and at the end consumers might end up paying higher price for the gas particularly those in far-flung areas, Mr Banerjee said. Mr Banerjee said more gas will began flowing from 2007 onward and necessary infrastrcture should be place at the earliest. Even lng capacity will be further added in next two years, he added. The chairman said that the GAIL has planned to lay nearly 1,100 kms connecting Jagdishpur with Haldia at a proposed investment of Rs 2,366 crore. This pipeline will connect western, northern and eastern region of the country. However, a decision connecting southern states through gas pipeline will be taken later, after the policy will be finalised by the Government. (UNI) |
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Hyundai to invest 50 mln to set up mobile MFG plant in India NEW DELHI, Dec 17: Korean conglomerate Hyundai today said it will invest 50 million dollars over the next five years to set up a manufacturing plant for GSM and CDMA phones and also a research and development centre in India. The company will hire around 1,000 employees, Hyundai India Telecom Ltd managing director Vijay R Singh told reporters here. Hyundai India will manufacture the entire range of GSM and CDMA handsets. "Fifty per cent of the output will be earmarked for the domestic market while the rest will be for the global market, primarily in the Asian and SAARC belt," Mr Singh said. He said a global R and D unit is being planned to create cutting edge software design and application for mobile handsets. "We are in talks with leading software giants for a strategic joint venture to develop localised mobile application and software phones," he added. The production facility will have a capacity of 4,000 handsets. "The first year capacity would be upto 12 lakh handsets per annum with the provision to triple the capacity based on demanmd," Mr Singh said. Hyundai mobile is a part of the 25 billion dollars Korean giant Hyundai corporation. It has already rolled out its handsets in India last month. (UNI) |
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NEW DELHI, Dec 17: Inflation fell for the second consecutive week to 7.02 per cent for the week ended December 4, mainly due to cheaper primary and fuel products. The point-to-point Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation fell by 0.28 per cent from 7.3 per cent in the previous week as vegetable prices fell by a whopping 8 per cent. Inflation stood at 5.56 per cent in the year-ago period. The WPI fell by 0.3 per cent to 189.1 points even as the index of heavy-weighted manufactured products’ group remained unchanged at the previous week’s level. It was 176.7 points in the previous year period. The final inflation and WPI stood unchanged at their provisional levels of 7.1 per cent and 188.5 points during the week ended October nine. The index of primary articles’ group was down by over one per cent to 187.8 points due to an all-round decline in the prices of food and non-food items. The index was 181.5 points in the year-ago period. Food articles’ group index fell by 1.3 per cent to 187.8 points due to lower prices of poultry chicken (13 per cent), vegetables (eight per cent), fish-marine (five per cent), eggs (three per cent), fruits (two per cent) and tea, arhar and urad (one per cent each), while prices moved up for barley (two per cent) and jowar, bajra and maize (one per cent each). The index of non-food articles’ group fell marginally by 0.6 per cent to 181.1 points due to cheaper gingelly seed (six per cent), raw cotton (three per cent) and rape and mustard seed, castor seed and cotton seed (two per cent each) and raw rubber (one per cent). Howver, prices rose for groundnut seed and raw wool (two per cent each) and raw jute (one per cent). Fuel, power, light and lubricants’ group index was down by 0.2 per cent to 289.2 points on account of lower prices for aviation turbine fuel (eight per cent), furnace oil (two per cent) and naptha (one per cent). The index was 255.9 points in the year-ago period. The fall in fuels’ group index was in line with the global markets since oil prices moved in a range of 42-43 dollars a barrel during the week under review. The index of manufactured products’ group remained firm at the previous week’s level of 167.2 points even as food products, rubber and chemicals became cheaper while there was an increase in the case of textiles, paper, basic metals, non-metallic minerals, machinery and transport equipment. It was 157.4 points in the previous year period. (PTI) |
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Offshoring to India saves 30 b annually for US economy: Study NEW DELHI, Dec 17: Around 15 per cent of IT jobs for US companies will be performed in India by 2010, helping the US economy to create annual investments worth 30 billion dollar, a study by AMR research has said. "By 2010, cost savings from offshore outsourcing will create an additional 30 billion dollar per year in new investments for us companies," AMR said in its study titled "the adolescence of offshoring: growing up fast". With average US IT fully-loaded labour costs approaching 80,000 dollar per worker per year, a worker in India represents a 36,000-dollar savings per year, and 1.5 million workers represent 54 billion dollar in savings each year. "Companies reinvest 60 per cent of savings from outsourcing in IT or business unit projects that’s 30 billion dollar per year," AMR pointed out. In the next six years, the Indian IT labour force will be larger than three million, and half of the workers will be performing jobs for US companies. Outsourcing to India will aid the us economy if the savings from outsourcing continue to be reinvested in strategic projects. With the savings from outsourcing to India, US companies can fund and launch 12,000 new strategic projects, it said. The impact of these new projects can be huge. According to the research into Demand-Driven Supply Networks (DDSNs), investments that allow companies to improve just 10 per cent of their ability to fulfil orders that are complete, accurate, on time, and in perfect condition can result in additional earnings of 50 cents per share, a result that stockholders will applaud. Further, companies effectively outsourcing to India can slash by 40 to 50 per cent the cost of application management and development, data centre operations, help desk support, and other non-strategic activities, AMR added. (UNI) |
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Govt plans comprehensive package for uplift of coffee growers NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Government is planning to come out with a comprehensive package for the upliftment of the coffee growers. Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, expressing concern over the plight of the coffee growers, told the Lok Sabha during the question hour that a package for providing relief was under active consideration of the Government. On reports of suicide committed by farmers in coffee producing areas of Karnataka and Kerala, he said five cases were reported during 2003-2004 and two cases so far in 2004-2005 from Karnataka. Reports from Kerala were still awaited, he added. Since domestic prices of coffee tend to move in tandem with international prices, the Government was aware of the difficulties being faced by the coffee growers due to low pricing of the coffee. Admitting that there had been a steep fall in the prices of coffee due to several factors, including declining international prices and drought situations, he said the earlier package structured for the coffee sector in 2000-01 to benefit the farmers had failed to provide relief, hence the need to restructure it was felt by the Government. Informing the house about the measures taken by the Government to benefit the coffee growers, he said steps were underway for re-phasing and restructuring of loans taken by the coffee farmers from the commercial banks by way of Special Coffee Term Loan(SCTL) and extending interest subsidy to coffee growers on working capital loans. Admitting to a slight fall in the exports of coffee, he said during April- October 2004 it was approximately 1.24 lakh tonnes as compared to 1.30 lakh tonnes for the corresponding period last year. About eighty percent of the India’s coffee is exported, he said to a supplementary, he said possibility of the problems arising due to coffee import was remote as the quantum of coffee imported is almost negligible, about three thousand tonnes, he added. (UNI) |
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Rlys incur Rs 400 crore extra expenditure due to steel price hike NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Indian Railways have incurred extra expenditure of Rs 400 crore during the past year on account of a steep hike in the prices of steel, Minister of State for Railways R Velu said today. He told the Rajya Sabha during question hour that railways which consume about one million tonnes of steel a year, spend about 70 per cent on track building and 30 per cent on coaches. There was a proposal to construct aluminium coaches like in the US and UK which would also be insulated against fires. The railways were also in the process of adopting new and advanced technologies to ensure that performance increased and costs were reduced. He said the Government had also instituted a commission to look into the possible use of the scrap which is worth Rs 1000 crore. To a question regarding an incident of firing on workers and unrest among employees at a railway construction site on the Udhampur sector in Jammu region, the minister said an inquiry would be initiated to look into the whole matter. (UNI) |
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India-China trade crosses 10 bn USD-mark for the first time BEIJING, Dec 17: India-China bilateral trade has set a new record by crossing the USD 10 billion mark for the first time during which India has also emerged among the top 10 Asian trading partners of the Communist giant. India-China bilateral trade touched USD 10.84 billion during the January-October period, registering an impressive growth of 82.53 per cent over the corresponding period last year, according to Chinese customs statistics. Bilateral trade during the first 10 months of 2004 has already achieved the USD 10 billion target set by the political leadership of the two Asian giants, official sources said here. Two-way trade between the two sides is expected to hit USD 12 billion during the January-December period, they said. During the January-October period, India was China’s eighth largest trading partner after Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Japan topped the list with a bilateral trade of USD 135.82 billion during the first ten months. Indian exports to China during January-October period was worth USD 6.27 billion, up 90.86 per cent while India’s imports from China for the same period touched USD 4.56 billion, up 72.19 per cent over the same period last year. During the first ten months, India enjoyed a trade surplus of USD 1.71 billion with China. Total monthly volume of bilateral trade in October stood at USD 1.05 billion. The monthly trade value has hovered around the USD one billion mark for the past seven months. (PTI) |
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6.82 pc increase in subscriber base NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) today said that the gross subscriber base for the fixed and mobile services have reached 86.86 million at the end of the quarter ending September 2004 from 81.31 milion as on June 2004, an increase of 6.82 per cent. The growth on annual basis (September 2003 to September 2004) is more than 34.10, TRAI said in a statement. Subscribers of fixed service including WLL increased from 43.51 million to 43.87 million and that of mobile GSM including CDMA went up from 37.8 million to 42.99 million during the quarter. Mobile users showed a increase of 13.73 per cent during the quarter. The annual growth for this segment was 86.66 per cent. The number of VPTs increase to 1.329 taking the cummulative figure to 5,24,301 VPTs in the country, covering more than 86 per cent of the total number of villages. The number of PCOs in the country increased to 22,77,853 registering a growth of 10.18 per cent during the quarter. The subscriber base of internet increased to 8 per cent during the quarter ending Septmebr. The numbers increased from 4.93 million to 5.32 milion in September 2004. The annual growth of this segment increased to 33.59 per cent. (UNI) |
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IDBI sets target of Rs 5000 crore for home loans PUNE, Dec 17: The IDBI bank has started a new scheme ‘on spot sanctions’ in order to meet its target of Rs 5,000 crore for home loans this financial year. This was informed by IDBI bank retail assets head Prashant Joshi here last evening. Talking to UNI after inaugurating the IDBI pavilion at the ‘property exhibition and home loan mela’ here, Mr Joshi said the bank had participated in four such exhibitions across the country and will participate in a similar show in Delhi next month. Mr Joshi said the IDBI has been among the top five players in the home loans sector since long, and target for this financial year has been set at Rs 5000 crore. The bank had disbursed Rs 4,000 crore in home loans last year. Mr Joshi was hopeful about meeting one-fourth of the target, around Rs 1200 crore, through participating in such ‘home loan melas’ and property exhibitions which were proving to be "very useful" for nearly all financial institutions. He informed that under the ‘on the spot sanctions’ scheme, if a customer selected a certain property in the exhibition, the bank would scrutinise the income documents of the customer there itself and a formal sanction of the loan would be given on spot. The formalities would be completed at a later stage. A lucky draw would also be held, among those who receive sanction at the exhibition, and the winner will be provided furniture for his new house. Mr Joshi informed that the bank was offering 100 per cent property loan for properties at such exhibitions without any down payments to certain select customers. The purpose of the scheme was to offer services to the customer who was on the look out for add-on property as long-term investment. (UNI) Modi to lay foundation stone for jewellery park SURAT, Dec 17: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for the gems and jewellery park at Ichhapore near Hazira on Sunday. Addressing reporters here today, Gujarat Hira Bourse president Chandrakant Sanghvi said with the coming up of a jewellery park in Surat, the diamond industry here would have the advantage in terms of value-addition. He said though out of the total exports of diamonds from the country, 90 per cent diamonds were polished here, the contribution in jewellery was less than two per cent. He said the park which would be developed in two years time would be a major boost to the industry when the processed diamonds would be studded on jewellery. He said for developing infrastructure, the Central Government had allocated Rs 50 crore for this project. He said the project had been geting an encouraging response in the beginning itself as about 300 diamond merchants had already been registered for plots. Mr Sanghvi said besides Chief Minister, former Union Minister and local MP, Kashiram Rana will preside over the function while the Minister of Water Supply and Irrigation, Mr Narottambhai Patel will be the chief guest. Other State Ministers Anilhai Patel, Saurabhbhai Patel and Bakulbhai Mehta, chairman gem and jewellery exports promotion council will also attend the function. (UNI) |
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