JOHANNESBURG, Aug 7:  South African business sector, globally renowned for the competencies in infrastructure, financial and insurance sectors should take advantage of the new Indian government’s reform agenda, Indian High Commissioner to South Africa Virendra Gupta has said.
Speaking at a seminar in the Festival of India, Indian High Commissioner to South Africa Virendra Gupta said yesterday that the India-Southern African Customs Union (SACU) Preferential Trade Agreement would be concluded soon to give a boost to bilateral business ties.
Gupta was inaugurating a business seminar titled “Leveraging Business Opportunities in-post-election India”, organised by the Indian missions in Pretoria and Johannesburg in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The South African business sector should take advantage of the reform agenda of the new Indian Government, especially because of their globally renowned competencies in the infrastructure, financial and insurance sectors,
The seminar was part of a series of events in the Festival of India 2014 in South Africa currently underway to mark 20 years of India-South Africa diplomatic relations and 20 years of democracy in South Africa, he said.
E B Rajesh, Regional Director for Africa, Middle East and the Gulf, CII highlighted during the seminar the expectations of Indian Industry from the present Indian Government on policy issues such as public-private partnership framework, General Sales Tax [GST], ease of doing business and monetary easing.
“The India-Africa trade and investment corridor offers immense opportunity and we need to develop connectivity between BRICS countries as well,” said Abdullah Verachia of the India-African Business Network.
He also urged South African entities to look at opportunities in the Tier-II and III cities in India, rather than just at the metropolitan centres.
“India-South Africa bilateral trade in 2012-13 stood at USD 13.9 billion. More than 100 Indian companies are present in South Africa with a combined investment of upwards of USD 7 billion. ” said Consul-General Randhir Jaiswal.
“Similarly on the South African side, majors such as Sanlam, Airports Company of South Africa, Life Healthcare and others have made significant investments in India,” he added.
Senior Indian journalist Subhomoy Bhattachrjee, a panellists in the seminar, spoke on the proposed changes in India to attract FDI and to improve the business climate. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Aug 7:  An independent US quasi-judicial federal agency has ruled out against imposing any anti-dumping duty against certain categories of steel threaded rod from India.
The ruling by United States International Trade Commission (USITC) came yesterday a month after US Department of Commerce determined that Indian steel threaded rod was being dumped in the country and sought imposition of anti-dumping duty against it.
“The USITC today determined that a US industry is neither materially injured nor threatened with material injury by reason of imports of certain steel threaded rod from India that the US Department of Commerce has determined are subsidised and sold in the United States at less than fair value,” a media statement said.
The USITC Chairman Meredith M Broadbent, Vice Chairman Dean A Pinkert and Commissioners Irving A Williamson, David Johanson and F Scott Kieff voted in the negative.
Commissioner Rhonda K Schmidtlein did not participate in these investigations.
“As a result of the USITC’s negative determinations, no antidumping and countervailing duty orders will be issued,” the statement said.
In 2013, imports of steel threaded rod from India were valued at an estimated USD 19 million.
In July the Department of Commerce determined that imports of steel threaded rod from India had been sold in the United States at dumping margins ranging from 16.74 to 119.    87 per cent.
It also determined that imports of steel threaded rod from India have received countervailable subsidies ranging from 8.61 to 39. 46 per cent.
In the anti-dumping investigation, mandatory respondents Mangal Steel Enterprises Limited and Babu Exports received final dumping margins of 16.74 per cent and 119. 87 respectively. (PTI)

PHNOM PENH, Aug 7:  Two former Khmer Rouge leaders were jailed for life today after being found guilty of crimes against humanity by Cambodia’s UN-backed court, the first-ever sentences for leaders of the murderous regime.
“Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, 88, and former head of state Khieu Samphan, 83, were “guilty of the crimes against humanity, of extermination… Political persecution, and other inhumane acts,” said judge Nil Nonn.
The pair are entitled to appeal the verdict, but the judge said the gravity of the crimes meant they “shall remain in detention until this judgment becomes final”.
Prosecutors had sought life terms for the defendants — the most senior surviving ex-Khmer Rouge officials —  for their roles in a regime which left up to two million people dead during the “Killing Fields” era from 1975-1979.
The verdict, after a two-year trial, is likely to bring a measure of justice to those who survived the Khmer Rouge years, three decades after the regime’s fall.
The era saw a quarter of Cambodia’s population killed or die from starvation and overwork.
A few dozen survivors, many travelling from far-flung rural provinces, arrived early to join some 900 Cambodians at the Phnom Penh-based court to watch the verdicts.
The defendants had throughout the trial denied knowledge of the regime’s crimes during the era.
But both eventually expressed a level of remorse for the suffering inflicted on the Cambodian people by the Khmer Rouge.
The complex case against them was split into a series of smaller trials in 2011 for reasons including their advanced age and the large number of accusations.
Led by “Brother Number One” Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge dismantled modern society with regime atrocities affecting virtually every family in Cambodia. (AGENCIES)

MEXICO CITY, Aug 7: Mexico’s Congress gave final approval to a historic energy reform that will open the state-controlled sector to foreign investment for the first time since 1938.
After a marathon debate, the Senate voted 78-26 for the package of bills that will break the monopoly that has been held by state-run energy giant Pemex since foreign companies were kicked out of Mexico 75 years ago.
The legislation, which was already approved by the lower house of Congress, now goes to President Enrique Pena Nieto’s desk for his signature.
The reform is the centrepiece of Pena Nieto’s reform drive to breathe new life into Latin America’s second biggest economy.
It will allow foreign companies to sign profit-sharing contracts with Mexico as soon as next year and drill for oil and natural gas.
“Mexico can’t stay as it is. Mexico must change to combat poverty and inequality, which is why we want to increase oil profits,” said Senator David Penchyna of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) during a heated debate.
The government argues that the legislation will boost growth, create jobs and reverse declining oil production.
But the leftist opposition says the reform amounts to a damaging privatization of Pemex, the country’s main source of tax revenue and a symbol of national sovereignty.
“Our dear Mexico is becoming more and more like a restaurant where foreign customers can enjoy our energy resources without limits and almost for free,” said Senator Fernando Mayans Canabal of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
PRD lawmakers brought a life-size picture of late former president Lazaro Cardenas to the Senate floor and accused the PRI of betraying the legacy of the man who nationalized the oil industry in 1938.
The constitutional reform was approved in December with the backing of Pena Nieto’s centrist PRI and the conservative National Action Party (PAN).
But to be enacted, the Congress needed to pass “secondary laws” that outline how contracts will be offered, among other things.
Major oil companies have kept a close eye on the legislation, with US giant ExxonMobil and British rival BP leading an “energy task force” within the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico. (AGENCIES)