The Tribune...Business

	B U S I N E S S	Thursday, July 9, 1998
weather n spotlight today's calendar

Agricultural research gets
only 0.30 pc of Plan outlay
NEW DELHI, July 8 — A Parliamentary standing committee has expressed “disappointment” over the measly 0.30 per cent of the total central outlay allocated in the Ninth Plan for research and development activity in agriculture.

Jewellery & gem
exports rise

Foodgrain stocks go up
NEW DELHI, July 8 — The foodgrain stocks have shown a 26.0 per cent increase this year as compared to last year, says the latest monthly economic report.

Indonesia’s first recession in 30 yrs
CRIPPLING interest rates and the rupiah’s spectacular collapse have sent Indonesia into its first recession for 30 years..

Sharif presses IMF team for loan
LAHORE, July 8 — Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met a senior IMF team today to press for the full disbursement of a loan threatened by sanctions, officials said.

Daewoo small car launch in Sept
NEW DELHI, July 8 (PTI) — The Project Approval Board (PAB) of the Industry Ministry has approved the application of Daewoo Motors India Ltd for a technical assistance agreement, paving the way for the introduction of small car "Matiz" in September.

Agricultural research gets
only 0.30 pc of Plan outlay
NEW DELHI, July 8 (PTI) — A Parliamentary standing committee has expressed “disappointment” over the measly 0.30 per cent of the total central outlay allocated in the Ninth Plan for research and development activity in agriculture.
The report, tabled in Parliament yesterday, said outlay for the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) stood at Rs 2635.22 crore, only 0.30 per cent of the total outlay.
The allocation includes a one-time grant of Rs 400 crore for renovation of universities and institutes which are 30 to 40 years old and Rs 135.33 crore as an externally aided component, leaving only 0.24 per cent of the outlay for DARE/ICAR.
This is in sharp contrast to the 0.53 per cent allocation made under the fifth plan period, the committee on agriculture said adding that in the last 30 years percentage allocation went down by 50 per cent whereas it should have gone up by 200 per cent and reached a level of 2 per cent of the total outlay.
The committee has strongly recommended enhancement of the Plan outlay for DARE/ICAR in the ninth plan to the level of 1 per cent of agricultural gross domestic product (GDP).
DARE and ICAR has demanded an outlay of Rs 7,800 crore in the Ninth Plan out of which Rs 2100 crore was allocated by the government.
“The committee is surprised as to how these departments with such a large infrastructure of 79 institutes, 90 projects, 12 other projects and 261 krishi vigyan kendras (KVKs) can achieve Ninth Plan goals with this petty allocation”, the report said.
On earlier occasions also, the committee proposed allocation enhancement but the matter was not taken up by the ministries and departments concerned.

Foodgrain stocks go up
Tribune News Service
NEW DELHI, July 8 — The foodgrain stocks have shown a 26.0 per cent increase this year as compared to last year, says the latest monthly economic report.
The stocks as on May 1, 1998 stood at 21.92 million tonnes as compared to 17.40 million tonnes during the corresponding period of the previous year.
Wheat procurement up to June 15 during the current marketing (1998-99) year touched 12.37 million tonnes as compared to 8.99 million tonnes during the corresponding period in 1997-98. Procurement of rice has been 20.9 per cent higher during the current year than the previous year.
In April 1998, the growth rate of overall industrial production increased to 6.3 per cent from 3.9 per cent in April, 1997.
While the growth rate of the manufacturing sector increased to 6.8 per cent, the growth of electricity generation increased to 10.1 per cent . However, the growth of mining and quarrying declined to 2.2 per cent during April this year from 4.6 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Core infrastructure sectors during this period displayed a mixed performance . During April, 1998 the average growth rate was 4.7 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent in the previous year.
During the current financial year so far (March 31,1998 to May 22, 1998) monetary expansion was slightly higher at 3.0 per cent as against 2.7 per cent in the corresponding period of 1997-98.
Among its components currency with the public showed a higher growth of 9.3 per cent than that of 8.5 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Demand deposits with banks decreased by 1.8 per cent as compared to the decline of 6.6 per cent during the corresponding period of the last financial year.
Bank credit to scheduled commercial banks during the current financial year so far (March 31, 1998 to May 22, 1998) has fallen by 0.3 per cent as compared with a decline of 0.6 per cent in the corresponding period of 1997.
On the sources side, net bank credit to the government showed a higher growth of 6.5 per cent during the current financial year so far, as compared to 5.1 per cent during the same period of the previous year.
In the external sector, exports in dollar terms during April, 1998 increased by 2.2 per cent as against a decline of 10.1 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year. Imports increased by 13.9 per cent as against a rise of 1.7 per cent during April, 1997.
The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI) stood at 6.5 per cent as on June 6, 1998 compared to 5.8 per cent a year ago.

Daewoo small car launch in Sept
NEW DELHI, July 8 (PTI) — The Project Approval Board (PAB) of the Industry Ministry has approved the application of Daewoo Motors India Ltd for a technical assistance agreement, paving the way for the introduction of small car "Matiz" in September.
The technical assistance agreement (TAA), which envisages the transfer of technology from Daewoo Heavy Industries Korea to Daewoo Motors India for the small car and subsequent royalty payment, was cleared last week, company sources said today.
When contacted, Managing Director of Daewoo Motors India, S.G.Awasthi, neither confirmed nor denied this but only said: "A small car project is on schedule and we are confident of succeeding in the competition".
Sources said the TAA also granted Daewoo, which has already invested about Rs 3,300 crore, permission for introducing new vehicles with an engine capacity of upto 3000 cc without any further clearances.
Daewoo, which manufactures ‘Cielo’ luxury cars at its Surajpur factory in Greater Noida, plans to launch the 796 cc small car in end of September and more variants at a later stage.
Daewoo sources said the small car Matiz has already undergone about 80,000 km of road testing with different types of fuel samplings across the country and initial result has been "excellent and up to expectations".
Daewoo India plans to make about 12,000 small cars this financial year which would enhance the company’s chances of getting out of the red, the sources said.

Indonesia’s first recession in 30 yrs
From Charlotte Denny in London
CRIPPLING interest rates and the rupiah’s spectacular collapse have sent Indonesia into its first recession for 30 years.
Output shrank by 16.54 per cent in the second quarter of the year after falling by 6.2 per cent in the first quarter, according to Indonesia’s Bureau of Statistics. Economists define a recession as two successive quarters of contracting output.
The numbers are a confirmation of the pain experienced in the past year by the country’s swelling ranks of unemployed and its largest corporations, as the rupiah lost more than 80 per cent of its value against the US dollar. Jean-Michel Severino, World Bank vice-president for East Asia and the Pacific, said Indonesia’s economic crisis was “unprecedented” since the second world war.
“All this is a wake-up call that we’ve gone from asking ‘where’s the rupiah trading?’ to 'do people have enough food to live on?” said John Davitte, an emerging markets economist with IDEA in London. — The Guardian.

Sharif presses IMF team for loan
LAHORE, July 8 (Reuters) — Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met a senior IMF team today to press for the full disbursement of a loan threatened by sanctions, officials said.
Sharif and Finance Minister Tareq Aziz held hour-long talks with a team led by Paul Chabrier, IMF Director in West Asia.
The meeting was held 24 hours after Aziz said that Pakistan might have to consider a moratorium on repayments on its $ 30 billion debt if sanctions imposed for nuclear tests continued.
Aziz said that Pakistan needed $ 1.5 billion in the current financial year, the exact cost of the sanctions — to meet repayments and said a crunch would come in three months.
The government expected a $ 1.56 billion IMF credit to be disbursed in full alter a June tranche of $ 26 million was delayed by sanctions.
It was the first time the government had publicy raised the possibility of a moratorium or default and follows measures by the State Bank of Pakistan to stem capital flight by declaring a freeze on foreign exchange accounts.

Jewellery & gem exports rise
NEW DELHI, July 8 (PTI) — India’s gem and jewellery exports have registered a significant rise during the first two months of the current fiscal despite a 10 per cent slide in the country’s overall exports and financial crisis in South-East Asia, a senior Commerce Ministry official said today.
“Jewellery exports have been extra-ordinarily good with shipments increasing by 12 per cent in April and 14 per cent in May as compared to last year’s figures in the same period.” Surajit Mitra, Joint Secretary, Commerce Ministry, told PTI.
India had fared well in jewellery exports by making inroads in the United States and Western Europe markets.
We are doing well in these markets despite the fact that shipments to the South-East have virtually come to a standstill,” he said..

Biz briefs

Duty on wool
NEW DELHI, July 8 (PTI)— Woollen exporters have demanded that the government withdraw the hefty 25 per cent duty on wool imports and restructure the Woollen Export Promotion Council to fully tap the export potential of the industry.During a meeting with Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde on Tuesday, a wool industry delegation proposed that there should be eligibility criteria for selecting members of the council.The delegation submitted a detailed report on the duty entitlement passbook scheme which, hegde agreed to look into.

Sugar procurement
NEW DELHI, July 8 (UNI) — The sugar producers have suggested the government to procure sugar for levy from free sale pool as it will help the domestic industry to liquidate its mounting inventories and enable them to pay to sugarcane growers and meet other obligations.The industry leaned five lakh tonnes of sugar to the government last year which was due to be returned by June this year.However, there seems to be hardly any chance of returning the same to the industry as the government is already falling short of levy sugar for distribution through the public distribution system

(PDS).

Hi-tech cities
NEW DELHI, July 8 (PTI) — The Prime Minister’s task force on information technology (IT) and software development has identified Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi and Bhubaneswar as the first five high-tech cities and said hi-tech habitats, akin to satellite townships, would be set up in the rural hinterland of these cities.“It is estimated that progressively 50 such hi-tech habitats can be viably set up. To fulfil targets set for IT industry by 2008,” the IT action plan of the task force, says.The government will “facilitate” the setting up of such hi-tech habitats by empowering state governments and enacting the required regulations, the action plan says.

Mango festival
NEW DELHI, July 8 (TNS)— More than 500 varieties of mango from different parts of the country and abroad will be on display at the annual mango festival being organised by Delhi Tourism from July 10. Delhi Tourism Minister Surendra Pal Ratawal, addressing a press conference here today, said that there would be a special stall giving information to farmers. The festival in the Capital is being held around the same time when “mango mela “98” is being organised by the Haryana Tourism.

Infranet ’98
NEW DELHI, July 8 (TNS)— The CII will host an international conference-cum-exposition on infrastructure development here from October 22 this year. Called Infranet 98, the three-day event will provide information on latest technological developments in the infrastructure sector through seminars and conferences.