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Nath told to make Cabinet note on opening up retail
Lalu to share Rly success mantra with Harvard boys today
India Inc satisfied with UPA govt: Assocham survey
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Assocham recipe for 9 pc growth
Govt to review FDI norms in mineral sector
Panoramic to invest Rs 1,200 cr
in realty
Teledensity set to increase to 22 pc
Tax sops to coal sector denied
SBI hikes PLR by 0.5 pc
GM may bring back Opel brand
PM assures panel on iron ore policy
Rupee gains 11 paise
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Nath told to make Cabinet note on opening up retail
New Delhi, December 26 The direction, according to sources, came after Mr Nath broached the subject with the Prime Minister recently. When asked, Mr Nath confirmed to reporters that the government was looking at allowing FDI in retail areas such as sports goods, stationery, construction material and electronics. Sources said the Commerce Ministry had already taken up the matter with Consumer Affairs Ministry as part of efforts to unleash FDI potential in the retail sector without affecting farmers and traditional shop owners. They said the Commerce Ministry was expected to pursue the matter next month, adding that up to six potential areas could be opened up for retail FDI. The sources said a draft of the Cabinet note had already been prepared. At present, FDI up to 51 per cent is allowed only in single-brand retail with prior government approval. In wholesale cash-and-carry, up to 100 per cent FDI is allowed. The government wants to encourage foreign investment in back-end retail activity like logistics, cold chain and technology so that it even helps the traditional retailers. All investments in the retail sector have to be routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. So far, 11 proposals have been received and four cleared. For back-end operations, the world's biggest retailer Wal-Mart has already tied up with the Bharti group. Similarly, French retailer Carrefour is reported to be exploring a tie-up with the Wadias. Mr Nath said FDI inflows in the first nine months of the current fiscal had grown 134 per cent to $6.1 billion and would cross $11 billion by March next. He said most of this was 'first mile' investment and much more would follow. More than $3 billion of FDI was in the pipeline in sectors like automobiles, telecom and financial services.
— PTI |
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Lalu to share Rly success mantra with Harvard boys today
New Delhi, December 26 Mr Prasad would give a lecture on the Indian Railways’ performance to the students at the Railway Museum. The Railway Minister recently gave management tips to students at the IIMs,Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Mr Prasad is credited with the financial turnaround of the loss-making Indian Railways which earned a revenue surplus of Rs 13,000 crore by March 31, 2006. Mr Prasad had delivered a lecture at the
IIM, Ahmedabad, where the students were impressed by his down-to-earth approach and appreciation of hard-nosed economic realities. US corporate giant General Electric's chief also came to India to study the phenomenal success of the
Railways. Management experts from Germany, Japan and France followed him. They all wanted to know what lies behind the Railways' success within a short span of 30 months. Mr Prasad says it was achieved by raising volume and through capacity enhancement.
— PTI |
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India Inc satisfied with UPA govt: Assocham survey
New Delhi, December 26 The just-conducted assessment carried out by Assocham on the UPA government’s performance for 2006 is based on a random opinion poll in which nearly 300 CEOs and MDs of large, medium and small industries participated. As many as 65 per cent of the CEOs felt that the UPA government’s performance was good in terms of keeping the GDP growth to over 8 per cent, maintaining export buoyancy by over 50 per cent and taking savings rate to 31 per cent and containing inflation a little over 5.3 per cent and maintaining confidence in the growth momentum. As many as 35 per cent of the CEOs have rated the current government performance, describing it just an average, arguing that neither employment has increased nor reforms in labour market were initiated and therefore, the growth rate cannot be termed as ‘inclusive’. However, 85 per cent CEOs felt that Dr Manmohan Singh did all humanly possible during the year on almost all fronts under coercion of coalition politics and particularly in maintaining an excellent foreign policy with equally balanced approach towards economies of scale and those of developing countries. Resurgence in the global economy will help India touch an impressive figure of $125 billion in exports by the end of current fiscal while the widening trade deficit will be contained provided fiscal reforms and reforms in financial sectors are introduced with aggressive speed. However, Assocham President Anil K. Agarwal said improvement in the investment climate - particularly in the infrastructure sector, both in the rural and urban areas - captured the attention of the CEOs surveyed by it.
Eighty per cent of the CEOs complimented the UPA government for taking the Sensex to an all-time high of 14,000 points, the credit for which goes to the Finance Minister and the UPA government in particular as the capital market maintained almost a steady pace during the whole 2006, barring an exception of few weeks. As many as 90 per cent of the industry leaders agreed that buoyancy in the steel, cement, banking, metals, construction material is a result of the boost given to the infrastructure and housing sectors apart from a global firmness in prices. The corporate results show that despite certain sectoral glitches, the companies have been maintaining a net profit growth ranging between 15 and 20 per cent. |
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Assocham recipe for 9 pc growth
New Delhi, December 26 As part of the multi-pronged strategy, the chamber has urged the government to promote India as international headquarter of entrepreneurs and encourage repatriation of profits from overseas and create common market for growth and competitiveness. Assocham president Anil K Agarwal said the chamber has also proposed that the Finance Minister should modernise excise duty regime in a manner that reduce industrial cost and give relief to consumers for which appropriate announcements be made when the Finance Minister P Chidambaram presents the Budget proposals for 2007-08. He said India needed to increase the rate of investment from the current level of 33-34 per cent of GDP to 39-40 per cent of GDP for accelerated economic growth. A large portion of this has to be invested on key infrastructure sectors like power, ports, roads, airports, roads, mining and high quality infrastructure for services. India needs an investment of approximately $320 billion in next 5 years to upgrade infrastructure alone for sustained 9 to 10 per cent economic growth rate. In addition, a large investment is required to expand manufacturing capacities in thrust areas and rapidly growing export production. The chamber strongly recommends that where the Indian shareholding in an overseas company is more that 40 per cent, the dividend remittance from such company to India should be exempted from Indian income tax. Alternatively, the tax paid in the overseas country on the underlying profit from which dividend is declared, should be given credit. Such tax policy will not only increase the remittance of foreign exchange earnings, but will also encourage companies to choose India as their international headquarter along with their key decision-makers. Since CST (central sales tax) is not vat-able, it encourages fragmentation of manufacturing with small state specific units and multiple depots to avoid CST. It, therefore, has significant adverse impact on growth and competitiveness of Indian industry and trade. Assocham has suggested that CST must be phased out without any further delay. Any perceived revenue lose will be more than made up by high growth of trade and industry. It is recommended that CST should be reduced to 2 per cent from April 1, 2007. As a first step, the government should set up an empowered committee consisting of state and Central Government representatives at the earliest to finalise the structure of GST and roadmap for its implementation. According to Assocham, replacement of multiple taxes by GST will increase the tax-GDP ratio by 2 per cent. Thus, apart from providing the revenue buoyancy, GST will simplify the tax structure, reduce tax administration cost and reduce compliance cost. GST will also improve the competitiveness of Indian industry by eliminating the cascading effect of taxes on production cost. The government should also integrate excise and service tax into a ‘Central VAT’ to facilitate introduction of GST at a later date. This integration will also reduce cost of compliance and tax administration, it said. |
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Govt to review FDI norms in mineral sector
New Delhi, December 26 When asked by how much the government would raise the FDI limits, he said the issue was not of percentages but that of attracting investments. At present, FDI limits are liberal but it is routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. They are also subjected to various restrictions put by other laws. The relook at FDI norms in mineral prospecting is part of a larger review. Officials said the review of FDI in all sectors was similar to the one undertaken early this year. The government wants to make this an annual exercise. The review may lead to further liberalisation of the FDI norms in various sectors.
— PTI |
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Focus on agri-exports: Kamal Nath
New Delhi, December 26 “The agriculture sector has to be sustainable in India. With 650 million persons engaged in agriculture contributing just 23 per cent of the GDP, there is a need to focus on identifying areas for increasing the agricultural exports so that agriculture also engages in the global economy”, the minister told a gathering at the inauguration ceremony of Niryat Bhavan, the building housing the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO). Pointing that India has exceeded its export growth target of $250 billion, transforming it into a major “engine for growth”, Mr Nath stressed that growth in exports needed to be sustained to achieve 10 per cent the GDP. “Exports form a vital part in a country’s growth”, he said
congratulating the exporters for exceeding the target set for exports and assured the exporters of the government’s continued support to achieve higher targets in future. Mr Nath urged the exporters to look at the potential of agriculture and agricultural products for export purposes. The minister called upon the FIEO to undertake a study on how to boost agricultural exports in the next five years. The Union Minister also gave away the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Export Awards, Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhu, for 2003-04 and 2004-05. Niryat Shree awards were given to exporters for achieving outstanding export performance while Niryat Bandhu were awarded to export promotion agencies for providing valuable support to the exporting community. On behalf of the federation, the minister also conferred Life Time Achievement Awards on renowned bureaucrat P.M.A. Hakeem and noted industrialist R. L Toshniwal. A special award was given to the ECGC for its admirable support to exporters of the country. |
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Panoramic to invest Rs 1,200 cr
in realty
Mumbai, December 26 The company has already purchased land worth Rs 200 crore for residential and commercial complexes across Maharashtra, Uttaranchal, Chandigarh and West Bengal, Panoramic Group Chairman Sudhir Moravekar said here today. He said the company has already received approval from its Board and shareholders to go ahead with the projects, to be built mainly in tier-II cities. "In all probability, these projects will take off at the beginning of the next financial year and would require 24-48 months for completion," he said. The company, listed in the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, plans to raise $12 million next month to finance the projects, Mr Moravekar said. Panoramic Universal owns and operates five hotels in US, one in New Zealand and three in India. It has lined up two five-star hotels — one each in Pune and Goa. The company also plans to set up three budget hotels in Kerala, Rajasthan and Shimla and two three-star hotels at Thane in Maharashtra and Durgapur in West Bengal.
— PTI |
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Teledensity set to increase to 22 pc
New Delhi, December 26 The total number of telephones has swelled to 183.46 million as on November 30 this year compared to 125.79 million on December 31 last year. The share of wireless phones has increased from 68 per cent in December, 2005, to 78 per cent in 2006," noted the DoT. In the year under review, the country surpassed the target of 100 million GSM mobile subscribers thus becoming the fifth country to achieve this benchmark after China, the USA, Japan and Russia. "Under the Bharat Nirman programme, out of 66,822 villages a total of 36,014 village public telephones have been provided as on October 31 this year. The rest of the villages will be covered well ahead of November 2007."aThe telecom sector's phenomenal growth has compelled global telecom companies to set up manufacturing bases in this country. Fresh commitments of about $2 billion are expected in telecom manufacturing in the next one year. Companies like Alcatel and Cisco had evinced interest in setting up their R and D centres in India, the DoT added. |
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Tax sops to coal sector denied
New Delhi, December 26 In an official note, the Coal Ministry said the Finance Ministry has turned down its proposal for permitting coal exploration and mining projects to tap External Commercial Borrowings to the extent of 50 per cent of their total cost. Similarly, the Finance Ministry torpedoed a proposal to grant income tax exemption up to 40 per cent of the profits earned by financial institutions through investment in coal exploration, it said. The Coal Ministry had also sought 20 per cent tax rebate for investments in shares, debentures and bonds of coal mining companies or units of mutual funds subscribing to those securities up to Rs 70,000. This proposal was also refused by the Finance Ministry, the note said. Besides, the Finance Ministry refused to provide relief in import duty of machinery and equipment for coal industry. The Finance Ministry also denied full tax exemption for the first five years for coal projects (seven years for those in the North-East). The Finance Ministry has turned down another suggestion for exemption sought by the Coal Ministry from capital gains if capital assets were invested in securities of the companies engaged in coal mining for three years or if the capital gains are invested for seven years.
— PTI |
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SBI hikes PLR by 0.5 pc
Mumbai, December 26 The PLR has been hiked to 11.5 per cent from 11 per cent, the SBI said. Though the bank has not stated the reasons or impact of the hike, the decision would make all loans linked to the PLR, whether corporate or retail, expensive. Further, there could be a repricing of loans offered to corporates on sub-PLR rates, sources said. The impact on the home and retail loan rates is not yet clear but some of them linked to the PLR could go up. The PLR hike is the third in the year for the SBI, which hiked it by 0.5 per cent first in April from 10.25 per cent to 10.75 per cent and then again in August by 0.25 per cent to 11 per cent. Other banks -- OBC, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank and Centurion Bank of Punjab (CBoP) -- had raised their PLRs following the RBI's decision to raise the CRR.
— PTI |
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GM may bring back Opel brand
New Delhi, December 26 "There is a possibility of re-introducing the Opel badge in the niche segment," a company source said. GM, which had shifted its focus to the Chevrolet brand after the global acquisition of erstwhile Daewoo, has found the latter's technology not only cost-efficient but much more suitable to the Indian market.
— PTI |
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PM assures panel on iron ore policy
Kolkata, December 26 "I told the Prime Minister that Hoda report was not proper and the Prime Minister had assured of constituting a fresh expert panel again," he told the gathering. He said there was need for a clear policy on iron ore, and added he had also apprised the Prime Minister on the issue of iron ore exports. Mr Bhattacharjee said export of iron ore was not in the interest of Indian steel industry. The Chief Minister also said the state government was planning to set up a sea port, 22 km away from Sagar Island.
— PTI |
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Rupee gains 11 paise
Mumbai, December 26 The rupee rose against the dollar on Friday as tight cash supply in the banking system made the market favour the higher-yielding local currency. Inflows from foreign funds as well as Oracle Corporation helped the rupee. Oracle brought in cash to fund an open offer for Indian banking software provider, i-flex solutions.
— UNI |
Reliance health insurance policy Atlanta SEZ Kotak 30 Fund Havells plan Vardhman Ind IndusInd Bank PHDCCI chief REC bonds |
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New Delhi, December 26
