TOKYO, Apr 20: Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday it would add a second shift at its Russian factory in September, hiring 600 new workers.
The factory in St. Petersburg currently produces about 20,000 Camrys a year on a single shift. Its workforce will rise to about 1,750 when two-shift operations begin, Japan’s top automaker said in a statement.
The factory has a production capacity of 50,000 vehicles a year.
Toyota said it would also add stamping and resin-molding processes at the factory in 2014 to promote further localisation in Russia.
(agencies)

MUMBAI, Apr 20: Public sector lender, Syndicate Bank has decided to change interest rates on lendings and deposits.
The Bank has cut the Base Rates by 25 basis points, from 10.75 per cent to 10.50 per cent and Benchmark Prime Lending Rate (BPLR)too reduced by 25 basis points, from 15 per cent to 14.75 per cent with effect from May 1.
However, Revised downward interest Rates on Domestic Term Deposits upto Rs 15 lakh under select maturity buckets with effect from April 23 along with revise downward Interest Rates on NRE Term Deposits, a bank release said.
The bank has taken this pro-active step, keeping in view the recent policy measures announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Base Rate means minimum rate of interest that a bank is allowed to charge from its customers.
BPLR is the interest rate that commercial banks normally charge their most credit-worthy customers.
(UNI)

TOKYO, Apr 20: Nissan Motor Co said on Friday that it would start building cars under its premium Infiniti brand in China from 2014, in a bid to boost sales in the world’s largest car market.
Nissan said it will start building two Infiniti models at plants run by its joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Group.
(agencies)

MUMBAI, Apr 20: Hindustan Zinc today said its net profit was down by 25.6 per cent to Rs 1412 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, comapared to Rs 1771.27 crore for the quarter ended
March 31, 2011.
The company has posted a net profit of Rs 5526.04 crore for the year ended March 31, 2012 as compared to Rs 4900.49 crore for the year ended March 31, 2011.
The total Income has surged from Rs 10905.19 crore for the year
ended March 31, 2011 to Rs 12948.14 crore for the year ended March 31, 2012, the company informed BSE.
(UNI)

NEW DELHI, Apr 19: Directorate General of Employment & Training(DGE&T) today announced that a web portal has been developed for the effective implementation of Skill Development Scheme(SDIS) to promote training of around 6 lakh people annually in India.
The portal has been developed by Hewlett Packard (HP) India.
DGE&T works closely with the State Governments and Vocational Training Providers (VTP) are engaged to provide professional training to unskilled and semi-skilled workforce in the country. The trained candidates are then assessed by empanelled Assessing Bodies (ABs) and certified ready for employment.
The earlier manual process of recording candidate’s information provided DGE&T with a limited visibility in respect of monitoring the training and assessment schedules and the number of candidates certified for employment. With large amounts of information spread across different cities and organisations, there was a need for a single platform to centralise the data.
In order to address this issue, DGE&T chose HP Enterprise Services to develop a web portal, a centralized system to manage the entire operations of SDI Scheme under DGE&T, and bring all the
regional offices, States, VTPs and ABs onto a single platform. As part of the agreement, HP will manage applications for the portal,
along with hardware at the data center in addition to maintenance and support through the entire duration of the project. HP will provide support for three years and has trained over 2000 users across 30 states and UTs of India to administer the SDIS portal.
The SDIS Web Portal would help the DGE&T in registering candidates, VTPs, and ABs. It also tracks the creation of training and assessment batches, publishing test results and dispersal of online certificates.
‘Government institutions like DGE&T need technology solutions that can support large number of users and provide timely information to various stakeholders as necessary, and in a transparent manner,’ said Marshal Correia, Vice-President & General Manager- HP Enterprise Services, HP India. ‘Developed to meet customer needs, HP Application Management services for the portal will help DGE&T to increase the pool of skilled manpower in the country.’
Mr Mallikrjun Kharge, Union Minister of Employment & Training, lauded HP and DGET while dedicating this portal to the nation. (UNI)_

JAIPUR, Apr 20: The production in Cairns India’s Mangla oil field in Barmer district of Rajasthan will soon go up by 25,000 barrels per day(BPD), a company spokesperson said.
‘The oil field presently is producing 1,25,000 BPD that would go up to 1,50,000 BPD in next few days’, the spokesperson said yesterday adding that the Government has accorded approval for increasing the production.
Besides Mangla oilfield—the second oil field of the company in the desert state—is also producing 25,000 BPD crude oil and hence the total oil production now would be 1,75,000 BPD in a few days.
(UNI)

Air China trade halted pending share placement plan
HONG KONG, Apr 20: Air China’s shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai were suspended on Friday pending details about a planned private placement of shares, the carrier said.
Shares of Air China in Hong Kong have fallen 10.8 percent so far in 2012.
Air China said in a statement posted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange late on Thursday that it was planning a private share placement and, separately, it would receive 1.05 billion yuan ($166.6 million) from its parent.
The company had said in August that it would receive 1 billion yuan from its parent to fund the previous purchase of Cathay Pacific shares.
On Thursday, the airline added it would receive an additional 50 million yuan from its parent. (AGENCIES)

SINGAPORE, Apr 20: Shanghai steel futures steadied after hitting two-week lows on Friday, but still posted their worst week in two months, as slow Chinese demand kept the pressure on prices and restrained buyers’ appetite for raw material iron ore.
The most active October rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange hit a session low of 4,298 yuan ($680) a tonne, a level not seen since April 5, before closing little changed at 4,313 yuan.
For the week, construction-used rebar fell 1.6 percent, its steepest drop since mid-February.
‘Steel demand is not particularly poor, it’s just not stellar. Relative to what China’s done in previous years, there isn’t quite the same impetus and confidence in the wider economy to bolster sentiment in the steel market,’ said Rory MacDonald, iron ore broker at Freight Investor Services.
A slowing economy in China, the world’s biggest steel producer and consumer, is raising doubts about whether a seasonal uptick in demand in the second quarter, when construction recovers after winter, would be as strong as many had thought.
That could curb China’s steel production, which hit a record daily pace above 2 million tonnes in early April, and consequently demand for iron ore.
‘I don’t see anything radical ahead in the next two or three months. Unless the government makes a clear move on the macro side, I don’t see the Chinese steel market fundamentals altering all that much,’ said MacDonald.
Steel demand was similarly slack elsewhere, with South Korean steelmaker POSCO reporting a 54 percent fall in first-quarter operating profit to 422 billion Korean won ($371 million) on weaker demand and higher raw material cost.
Prices at spot sale tenders by iron ore miners this week either dropped o hardly moved compared to previous tenders, suggesting there is no urgency among buyers to stock up.
Top iron ore miner sold 117,500 tonnes of 62.5-percent grade sinter feed late on Thursday at 147.18 a tonne, cost and freight, down from $148 at a prior tender in March, a Shanghai-based trader said.
Rio Tinto sold 61-percent grade Pilbara iron ore fines at $149.10 per tonne, about the same price at which it sold a similar cargo last week at $149.18, the trader said.
That followed Wednesday’s tender by BHP Billiton which sold Newman and Yandi iron ore fines at levels near a previous tender.
‘A lot of the steel mills are looking at a correction in steel prices because of the high production and slow demand. So they are slowing down on purchasing seaborne iron ore cargo,’ said the Shanghai trader.
Prices of spot steel have dropped, with steel billet in China’s key Tangshan area in Hebei province falling to 3,780 yuan a tonne on Friday from 3,820 yuan last week, traders said.
Benchmark iron ore with 62 percent iron content <.IO62-CNI=SI> was unchanged at $148.50 a tonne on Thursday, according to Steel Index.
The index-based price hit a six-month peak of $149.40 last week, but has dropped since.
‘We seem to be in touching distance of the ceiling for iron ore prices,’ said MacDonald at Freight Investor Services, who is looking at $150 as a resistance level.
A similar iron ore price gauge by Platts hit $151.25 last week, but has also fallen since, standing at $150.50 on Thursday.
(AGENCIES)

SEOUL, Apr 20: Seoul shares fell to a one-week low on Friday on renewed worries over the euro zone debt crisis and on doubts about the strength of U.S. economic recovery after lackluster jobs data.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) was down 1.34 percent at 1,972.98 points as of 0310 GMT.
Worries about the health of Spanish banks and the country’s fiscal situation escalated this week and jitters were aggravated by rumours, later denied, of a possible French rating downgrade.
‘Rumors buzzing around France and disappointing U.S. jobs data were the main drag on the index today, but resistance at the recent low near 1,970 points may be a springboard for recovery, especially with Japan and China showing steps towards monetary easing,’ said Um Tae-woong, an analyst at Bookook Securities.
Spain sold 2.5 billion euros in 2- and 10-year bonds, at the top end of the targeted amount, but yields on the key 10-year bond were higher, reflecting fears that it may miss budget deficit targets.
The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits for the first time fell only slightly last week, suggesting a slowdown in job growth while other data showed factory activity in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region declined steeply and U.S. Home sales fell for a second consecutive month.
Selling by offshore investors may extend for a fifth straight day, having sold a net 186.7 billion won ($164 million) of shares on Friday morning, making it the longest such streak in four months.
A slump in large-cap technology blue-chips weighed on the market, as LG Electronics tumbled 4 percent while Samsung Electronics fell 2 percent.
LG Chem shares plunged 8.1 percent after seeing its first-quarter profits slashed 45 percent compared to a year before, sandwiched between slowing demand in China and rising oil prices.
Shares in Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) rose 3.7 percent after its major shareholders announced plans to pick advisors in April to manage a 40 percent stake sale worth $1.06 billion.
(AGENCIES)

DETROIT, Apr 20: Dupont and Dow Chemical are among chemical firms working with global automakers who are bracing for a crunch in production, after a German chemical plant explosion cut a chunk of supply of a nylon resin used in brake and fuel systems.
The risk of production cuts is greater for car markers in the United States and France, and less in Japan and Germany, UBS said in a research note.
‘We see high risk of production stoppages in the second quarter,’ UBS analysts said in the research note issued on Thursday. But they also saw an ‘equally high probability’ that alternatives would be found within the same quarter.
The global supply of PA-12, used in several industries including auto manufacturing, was already stretched thin before the explosion at an Evonik Industries AG plant in Marl, Germany on March 31, that led to the nylon resin shortage.
Auto experts and analysts are not clear how the shortfall would affect China, which has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest auto market.
Florian Schattenmann, research director for Dow Automotive Systems, said Dow ‘has allocated essential resources to find alternative solutions’ to the use of the nylon resin PA-12, also known as Nylon-12.
DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman, in an earnings conference call with reporters on Thursday, said the company has three polymers that could be a replacement in some automotive applications.
As the race is on to find alternative substances to the nylon resin and as automotive engineers seek ‘work-arounds’ to keep making cars without PA-12, solutions likely will not be found in time to keep global auto production from falling in the second quarter, several analysts said.
Evonik is the leading maker of cyclododecatriene, or CDT, which is a base material used to make PA-12. The UBS research note said Evonik had 70 percent of the global available capacity of CDT used for the nylon resin PA-12.
Evonik made 40 percent of the world’s supply of CDT, said UBS. The available supply figure is higher because some makers of CDT do not make it available to other companies to make the nylon resin PA-12, UBS said.
Two workers were killed in the March 31 blast. Evonik stopped all its production of CDT.
Evonik has said it will be at least three months and perhaps until the start of next winter before it can resume full production of CDT.
LMC Automotive said on Thursday that North American automotive production, ‘which has been in overdrive in recent months’ faces a ‘real and substantial risk’ of slowed output.
Automakers will be forced to more closely manage inventory and the types of vehicles they produce to cope with the ‘looming shortage,’ said Jeff Schuster of LMC Automotive.
Neither LMC or UBS, nor major automakers around the world contacted by Reuters this week, have said how deeply production may be cut in the coming months.
JAPAN, GERMAN AUTOMAKERS LESS AFFECTED
Japan’s automakers rely on Asia’s biggest maker of PA-12, Ube Industries based in Yamaguchi, and German automakers can turn to Switzerland’s Ems Chemie Holding , UBS said.
French automakers will be exposed, UBS said, because they largely rely on France’s Arkema SA for the nylon resin and Arkema relies on Evonik for CDT to produce its PA-12.
U.S. Automakers and suppliers are highly reliant on Evonik or companies reliant on the German industrial conglomerate to make PA-12.
‘Whilst the industry will likely approve substitute materials within the second quarter, the disruption to production in coming weeks may disproportionately affect automakers with already weak balance sheets,’ the UBS note said.
Italy’s Fiat SpA and France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen were named by UBS as two automakers that ‘may experience further working capital disruptions in the second quarter’ due in part to payment to suppliers for first-quarter production.
All suppliers, even those that do not make auto parts using PA-12, will be affected by the shortage, UBS said. If the shortage impacts brake and fuel systems, it will affect other components because it is difficult to assemble vehicles and fit critical parts later, the bank’s analysts said.
Schattenmann of Dow Automotive said: ‘While we do not manufacture CDT or utilize the resin made from CDT in our manufacturing processes, we are actively evaluating alternative material solutions that could replace PA-12 in select applications.’
And Kullman of DuPont said: ‘Our specialists are working on the ground with the specific (automakers) and understanding if we could provide those that it does look like we’ll get some upside from that.’
She said it was too early to say how deeply DuPont would become involved in the business of supplying polymers for auto suppliers and automakers, but that the effort would be ‘positive’ for DuPont.
Invista Inc, a subsidiary of privately held Koch Industries of Wichita, Kansas and the maker of Stainmaster carpets, produces CDT. Invista will help the auto industry with CDT supply as much as it can, but has little to spare beyond its existing customers, said Invista spokeswoman Jodie Stutzman.
TI Automotive CEO Bill Kozyra sounded the alarm on the severity of the nylon resin PA-12 shortage to customers in a letter last week. That was followed by a meeting of major automakers and suppliers in suburban Detroit attended by more than 200 people.
Frank Buscemi, spokesman for TI Automotive, said cooperation among automakers, suppliers and chemical companies was high.
‘Alternatives may not be the same for every type of auto part that uses PA-12,’ said Buscemi, who added that different suppliers and automakers may use different solutions to keep making the same type of tubing, hoses or fuel tanks.
(agencies)