Andhranews

New Delhi, Sept. 25: Union commerce minister Kamal Nath said on Monday that the board for approval for SEZs has made it mandatory that no proposal for setting up SEZs on prime agricultural land should be cleared. Recently, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has shown her clear disapproval on land acquisition of farmers for setting up SEZs. This apart, the SEZ projects have been criticised from several quarters on the count of giving away cultivable land to business projects.

“The board of approval for SEZs has made it mandatory that no proposal for setting up SEZs on prime agricultural land should be cleared,” said Mr Nath on the sidelines of the India-Japan Economic partnership meet. Mr Nath said that as land is a state subject under the Constitution, the commerce ministry has written to State governments that they should not get into land acquisition for private players.

He said that SEZs should come up only on wastelands or bad farm lands and not on good farmlands. On the issue of the decision of the RBI to treat SEZs similar to real estate projects for lending purposes, Mr Nath said that the industry will have to take up this issue with the RBI. Meanwhile, on the issue of Indo-Japan trade ties, the commerce minister has said that a substantial progress has been made in preparing a road map for a Comprehensive Economic Agreement (CECA) to boost mutual trade.

The minister said that as India and Japan move towards this economic agreement, there was a need to “diversify the trade basket”. The minister also urged the Japanese SMEs to set up incubation facilities in India to tap the real potential. In the presence of the commerce minister, an agreement on cooperation between industry chamber Ficci and the JCCI (Japan Chamber of Commerce & Industry) was signed.

This agreement is meant to propel productive cooperation towards increasing trade and investments and improving the business environment through exchange of information related to bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

New Delhi, Sept. 25: Qualcomm, a developer of CDMA technology, has granted a licence to Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL) to develop, manufacture and sell CDMA mobile handsets and other devices. This is the first time that US-based Qualcomm has granted a licence to any Indian company to manufacture and sell CDMA mobile handsets. Before this, Reliance and other CDMA operators were getting these handsets through vendors.

HFCL president (business development) S.K. Garg told The Asian Age that in the first stage, the company would manufacture and sell CDMA mobiles to Reliance and fixed wireless phones to BSNL. During the second stage, HFCL would try to sell the CDMA mobile phones to Tata. HFCL had been one of the vendors from whom Reliance had been acquiring the CDMA mobile phones. HFCL has also been supplying BSNL with fixed wireless phones. Meanwhile, Tata had been buying its CDMA handsets from LG and other vendors. But HFCL is hopeful it

will be able to rope in the Tatas. “We think it would be cost effective for the Tatas to get CDMA phones from HFCL as they would be manufactured in India and would be cheaper,” said Mr Garg. The royalties payable by HFCL would be at Qualcomm’s standard worldwide rates. Previously, Reliance had been demanding that Qualcomm decrease the royalty so that the CDMA sets can become cheaper. But HFCL feels that by manufacturing the handsets in India, the company would be able to bring down prices.

“We would not invest heavily in this and the handsets would be manufactured in our existing facilities. Therefore, the handsets would be cheaper,” said Mr Garg. HFCL would be manufacturing the handsets at its facilities in Solan and Chennai. It would start commercial manufacturing on full scale from April 2007.

New Delhi, Sept. 25: Almost in line with the budget estimates, the government on Monday said it would borrow an estimated Rs 63,000 crore from the market through the issue of dated papers. With this, the government’s market borrowing will stand at Rs 1,52,000 crore at the end of this fiscal with Rs 89,000 crore already borrowed in the first half.

As such, this year’s borrowing will be 25.61 per cent higher than Rs 1,21,000 crore last fiscal. The budget has estimated these borrowing at Rs 1,52,856.48 crore this fiscal. As per the indicative calendar, the government will go for Rs 6,000 crore in October through two bonds of 10-14 and 20 years tenure, respectively.

In November, the government will raise Rs 14,000 crore through three papers-10-14 year, 5-9 year and 20-year maturity. The government will mop up Rs 9,000 crore in December through 5-9 year and 20-year papers. In January, the borrowings will be of Rs 14,000 crore and will be mopped up through papers of 10-14 year, 20-year and 15-20 year maturity.

The government will borrow Rs 9,000 crore in February from 5-9 year and 2-year-papers. In March, the government will go for Rs 8,000 crore through 10-14 year and 20-year bonds. The government maintained its aggregate borrowing at Rs 89,000 crore during April-September, 2006, as per estimates, but there was a slight change from indicative calendar. It borrowed Rs 9,000 crore on June 22 against Rs 5,000 crore in the indicative calendar.

New Delhi, Sept. 25: Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) on Monday launched its offering in the mid-size segment — Verna — pricing it between Rs 6.21 lakhs and 6.93 lakhs for the three petrol variants and Rs 7.35 lakhs for the diesel version. However, the company said these are introductory prices and the company may have a re-look at them by the end of the month.

Speaking at the launch, HMIL managing director H.S. Lheem said, “Verna is important for Hyundai’s India plans as the mid-sized segment has been witnessing exciting times in the last few years.” HMIL is already present in the mid-sized sedan car segment with the Accent. The company said that it has no plans to reduce the price of the Accent and said that with these two offerings, the company will have a dominant position in this segment, which promises good growth. More than 1,000 units of Verna has already been dispatched to dealers, the company said.

The three petrol variants of Verna will be powered by a 1.6-litre engine and the diesel Verna will have a 1.5-litre engine. The Honda City and Ford Fiesta are the mid-sized Sedans with which Hyundai’s Verna will have to compete in the market. Meanwhile, Hyundai also said on Monday that it would invest $500 million in a new engine and transmission plant in Chennai, a fact that was reported by this newspaper earlier this month.

The plant is expected to open in two years, with a capacity of at least 400,000 units, Mr Lheem said. About $237 million of the investment would come from Hyundai's suppliers. “Without this engine and transmission plant we can't build all the extra cars we want to build,” Mr Lheem said.

Mumbai, Sept. 25: Direct Logistics India Private Limited, a multinational freight forwarding and logistics group, is all set to acquire a Hong Kong-based freight forwarding company for nearly $5 million. “The Hong Kong-based company has operations in China as well, which will benefit us in expanding our network. It will be a 100 per cent acquisition. However, I cannot disclose the name of the company as we are bound by a non-disclosure agreement,” said Capt. Sunil Devrani, chief executive officer and managing director, Direct Logistics India Private Limited.

According to Mr Devrani, “Talks are still in process and we expect the deal to be finalised by December 2006.” The company also plans to open an office in Taiwan in October. It will also open seven more offices in India, where it expects to spend about $500,000 in expanding its network in the country. Direct Logistics India, a multimodal transport operator, provides international transportation solutions to companies engaged in global trade.

The company has its presence in India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, through its fully owned offices. It operates 15 offices across 4 different countries, with a team of over 150 people spread all over Asia. “The India-China logistics business is among the fastest-growing sectors.

Last year, the business was $18 billion, this year by December 2006, India-China logistics business will touch $20 billion,” said Mr Devrani. The company earned a revenue of Rs 40 crores in the last fiscal and expects its revenue to increase to Rs 140 crores in the current year.

Kunming (China), Sept. 25: Americans and Europeans are used to buying mass produced shoes, toys and microwave ovens from China. So why not roses? That is the thinking behind an elaborate Chinese government effort to export cut flowers, aimed not just at developing a new business to take on the world but at redeveloping the social and economic landscape here in southwestern China.

By placing the flower industry, along with several others, far from the coastal provinces that have enjoyed most of the nation’s prosperity, Beijing officials hope to bring jobs to tens of millions of impoverished, isolated workers in a bid to narrow the income gap between rich city dwellers and unemployed farmers.

At the giant flower farms here in Yunnan Province, workers earning as little as $25 a month clip roses from huge greenhouses, take them to vast sheds to remove any thorns by hand, and wrap them in paper and plastic for shipment. Roses without thorns are lighter and can be packed more tightly, reducing the cost of air shipment.

With the first sustained exports to the United States starting later this week, some of those flowers will end up in Los Angeles, packed with red wine bottles in gift boxes; others will be sold at auction in the Netherlands, where historical pride over locally grown tulips and other flowers has not quelled demand for inexpensive Chinese roses. Almost overnight, growers in this poor, rural province have become big suppliers to markets from Singapore to Moscow.

“Our plan is to become the biggest flower producer and exporter in Asia in 10 to 15 years,” and possibly the world’s largest after the Netherlands, said Li Gang, the deputy chief of the Flower Association, a provincial government agency. The government has dedicated a huge effort to making all this possible. Extending its top-notch infrastructure inland, it is building 12-lane roads, sturdy bridges and international airports in this strategically critical area.

Elsewhere in China’s poor inland provinces, similar investments are helping industries making everything from shoes to electronics to cars. The cut-flower industry is so impo-rtant a national priority that President Hu Jintao came to Yunnan Province two years ago to call for growth in shipments.

Mumbai, Sept. 25: Gateway Distriparks Ltd, a port-based logistics facilitator plant, has entered into a joint venture with the Chakiat group to set up a greenfield project at the Kochi port. The joint venture, in which Gateway Distriparks will be the majority shareholder with a 60 per cent stake, will build a container freight station, or CFS, near Vallarpadam. The Chakiat group, which has been in shipping and related activities since 1952, has a stake in the International Container Transhipment Terminal at Vallarpadam at the Kochi port.

The total cost of the CFS project is Rs 25 crores. It will be developed in phases and will have a capacity to handle 15,000 teus per annum and will be spread across an area of 17 acres. In the first phase, the company has acquired six acres of land and will acquire another five acres by next week. Capt. Christopher Verma, chief executive officer, Gateway Distriparks Ltd, said, “Kochi has the potential to develop as a major transhipment hub and we are gearing up to meet this demand.”

He said that the increase in export-import cargo and the subsequent increase in the congestion in the major ports will see traffic getting diverted to smaller ports. Gateway recently inaugurated its sixth warehouse at Dronagiri about nine kms from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port. It has a capacity to handle 800 teus per month and increasing the total container handling capacity at JNPT to 2,16,000 teus per annum.

Many semiconductor and technology companies around the world have been laboring to design a platform that can help in bringing mobile handsets for under $30. The under-$30 priced mobile handsets are being developed for markets like India and China. Agere Systems, which has shipped chips for more than 135 million cellular phones, says its new platform, the TrueNTRY X125, is willing and able to deliver much more affordable entry-level cell phones that feature compact disc-quality music.

The platform consists of semiconductor system chips, software and a product development kit. According to Agere, the platform delivers the entry-level segment’s fastest processing speed — three times faster than most typical cell phones in use today; the most integration; and a bill of materials product cost as low as $30. “At such low cost points, the cell phone market has the potential to accelerate its growth rate substantially, particularly in developing nations such as India and China,” it says.

How’s the technology work? Agere says the higher speed benefit of the X125 platform makes downloading CD-quality music in an entry-level handset faster and easier. In addition, Agere’s audio software and hardware electronics circuitry and processing technologies play integral roles in delivering sound quality comparable with industry-leading music players. This allows converged music cell phones with higher music quality.

Storage tech

Housed together with storage technology inside an entry-level cell phone, Agere’s platform gives entry-level cell phone users unprecedented access to several hundred songs, which can be played at high-quality sound,” it says. The second chip set in Agere’s portfolio of Vision architectural platforms, the X125 hits the market at a time when music player capability is becoming a widely craved feature in the cell phone market.

By the year 2007, thirty per cent of worldwide mobile handset shipments are projected to handle full-track music playback, Agere says, citing an IDC report. “CD-quality music is rapidly becoming a ’must have’ application for voice-centric and basic cell phones,” says Agere.

“The challenge has been figuring out how to achieve high-quality music and other higher-end, multimedia features on cell phones while making them much more affordable. The X125 overcomes this hurdle and unleashes breakthrough musical quality on entry-level phones.”

“By providing a dedicated applications processor separate from the communications engine, the X125 platform reduces a cell phone manufacturer’s product development costs and boosts overall processing speed.”

Mumbai, Sept. 25: Microsoft Corp. on Monday said that it will announce the worldwide launch of Microsoft digital advertising solutions during Advertising Week 2006. The move combines the company’s set of global advertising products and services into a unified offering for advertisers.

The solutions is designed to connect advertisers with their target audiences through multiple devices including PCs, Xbox, web-enabled mobile phones and personal digital assistance (PDAs). Advertisers in Asia will now have easier access to Microsoft’s extensive set of network properties and advertising solutions.

“We are extremely excited to launch Microsoft digital advertising solutions in Asia and provide advertisers throughout the region with access to our large, deeply engaged digital media audience,” said Mr Rajnish, head, digital marketing revenue and strategic business, MSN and Windows Live India.

“As today’s consumers spend more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding that they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium. However Microsoft provides the platform and services to connect advertisers with a million different audiences,” said Ms Joanne Bradford, corporate vice-president and chief media revenue officer, Microsoft.

According to Ms Joanne Bradford, the solutions offer advertisers the ability to reach more than 465 million consumers each month across the MSN network and millions more through Windows Live, Xbox Live and Office Online. The company’s advertising portfolio extends it reach across some of its latest releases such as live search and live local search, through relationships like facebook and the acquisition of in-game advertising pioneer, Massive Inc.

Mumbai, Sept. 25: Market regulator Sebi on Monday penalised Manog Securities and Hyderabad-based Y. Satish Kumar for violating brokers’ regulations by imposing a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 75,000 respectively.

Certain irregularities like non-maintenance of order book, failure to issue contract notes in the prescribed format, delayed payment of money and delivery of securities etc. were observed in the records of Manog Securities, a member of National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) during inspections conducted by Sebi, between April-May, 2003, the market regulator said.

On the other hand broker Y. Satish Kumar was caught indulging in funding activity, failing to maintain order book and also failing to collect margins from his clients, during an inspection of the broker’s trading for FY02 and FY03, Sebi said. In both the cases, the erring brokers have been asked to pay the fine within a span of 45 days from the day of receipt of the order.

Mumbai, Sept. 25: It was a lacklustre trading day with the Sensex moving in and out of positive and negative territory and then one hour before the close of trade, it started to dip rapidly and finally closed 62.87 points down at 12173.91, after touching a low of 12145.09 and a high of 12273.45 in intraday transactions.

The Nifty ended 3523.45, down 20.60 points and saw a low of 3514.85 and a high of 3568.65. The market turnover was sluggish with the two exchanges notching up a turnover of Rs 35,082 crores with the F&O sector accounting for Rs 25,421 crores. With the last day for settlement in the derivatives sector just three days away (Thursday), the market is expected to be volatile.

Oil refining companies were on the boil on news that global crude prices fell below the $60 per barrel mark. BPCL was up Rs 14.45, Indian Oil Rs 6.95 and HPCL Rs 5.70. The top heavyweight RIL attracted brisk activity and closed remarkably higher, mitigating the downslide. RIL’s rally was mainly credited to news of fresh gas discovery in the Krishna-Godavari exploration area off the Andhra Pradesh coast.

The IT stocks were down with Infosys losing Rs 12.85, Wipro Rs 5.20, TCS Rs 17.25 and Satyam Rs 10. The index was pulled down by heavyweights like ONGC which lost Rs 16.90, ITC Rs 3.40, Bajaj Auto Rs 52.25, Grasim Rs 49.55, HDFC Rs 15.40 and HLL Rs 4.50. Among the metal stocks, Tisco gained Rs 11 but the other metal stocks were down with Sterlite losing Rs 12.25, Sesa Goa Rs 3.60 and Hindustan Zinc Rs 11.30. Among the gainers were RIL up Rs 8.45, Bhel 13.40 and Unitech Rs 13.80.

Visakhapatnam, Sept. 25: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd, the holding company of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, posted a net profit of Rs 1,252.37 crores on sales of Rs 8,482 crores in 2004-05, RINL CMD Y. Siva Sagar Rao said at company’s 24th annual general meeting here on Monday.

The company has embarked on an expansion programme for doubling its capacity from three million tonnnes per annum to 6.3 MT with an object of not only increasing the scale of operations but also meeting the customers requirements, he said. Recently, RINL signed an MoU with MOIL for ferro-alloys and with NMDC for iron ore pellets.

Further, Mahal coking coal block, with an estimated reserve of 258 MT, was allotted to RINL. Meanwhile, linkages for raw materials security are being explored. The funding for the expansion will largely be from internal resources. “The corporate plan 2020 for the company is under finalisation, which aims to take the capacity of the plant ultimately up to 16 million tonnes by 2020,” Mr Rao said.

London, Sept. 25: Oil prices fell below $60 a barrel on Monday amid signs of growing petroleum inventories and after BP PLC said it had permission to restart the eastern half of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field. “Hedge funds and inv-estors have been bailing out because geopolitical tensions have eased and they also realise that inventories are high during this period of seasonally weak demand at the end of summer,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz.

Light Sweet crude for November delivery fell 80 cents to $59.75 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe. November Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange dropped 94 cents to $59.47 a barrel. Natural gas futures on the Nymex fell nearly 17 cents to $4.460 per 1,000 cubic feet — after its lowest close last week since September 10, 2004.

Gasoline futures slid 2 cents to $1.4503 per gallon, while October heating oil futures declined a cent to $1.6350 a gallon. BP said on Friday it will restart a portion of its Prudhoe Bay eastern operating area, as it conducts an inspection of the crude-oil pipeline.