The Factory has an installed
capacity of 58,528 spindles and 1048 looms including 148 fully automatic
picanol looms. The mill also has a capacity of processing one hundred thousand
meters of cloth per day along with the facilities of rotary screen printing
and other sophisticated equipments.
The company which employs 4,700
workmen is closed since April last year.
.
The proposed venture is intended to be a research and development, consultancy, resource, localisation and advanced training centre.
Renong Berhad Ltd of Malaysia
and Reliance Infrastructure of India are among the five companies
shortlisted
for the project estimated to
Cost Rs.3250 Million . The other three companies whose name could not be
available also belong to Malaysia.
"We have received many such proposals from various foreign power companies who want to enter into power generation in India and we are at present looking into such possibilities" WB principal energy specialist Kari Nyman told PTI.
The world bank has also given " in- priciple" clearence to fund and stand as a guarantor to Power Grid Corporation for undertaking the 4000 MV tranmission project estimated to cost Rs 50 billion.
This agreeement should make it easier for world diamond giant De Beers in gaining entry into India for mining and prospecting of precious and semi precious diamonds .
De Beers have formed a
Joint Venture with Reliance Industies called Diamonds Prospecting Pvt Ltd.
at
a 50-50 partnership and
is all prepared to make a bid for the Madhya Pradesh Government tenders
coming up shortly.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has prepared a new draft policy on Airport Infrastructure. This policy acknowledges that the answer to the resource crunch facing the airport infrastructure sector lay in infusion of private investment and actively seeks international aid for building of new airports and modernisation of existing airports in the country . The policy also envisages corporatisation of state owned airports in the begining with the final aim of privatisation of their ownership and management.
The policy focuses on the need to raise revenue from non-aeronautical commercial sources, which at present accounts for 22% of total revenue against international standard of 60% to 70% . A Master Plan for development of commercial activities and facilities for the maximisation of revenue will be drawn up.
If the policy is accepted by the cabinet, the commercialisation of marginal or loss making airports should be taken up soon. This would be done by transferring them to private companies, state goverments and urban local bodies for operation and management under negotiated terms and conditions. Similarly the land of non-operational airports may be diverted to non-aeronautical commercial uses.
The policy also stress the requirment of maintaining transparency and suggests tendering procedures involving limited tenders, two bid systems, use of net present value of bids spread over several years and granting of management contracts as some of the measures to be adopted.
The policy also envisages setting up of a data interchange system linking all state holders involved in cargo handling.
The Indian partners in the venture are the major fertilizer corporatives -IFFCO and Kribhco . The Iranian company involved is Qeshm Free Trade Area Authority (QFAA) . The Indian Companies have a 30% stake each and the rest is coming from the Iranian side.
The joint venture has already reached an agreement regarding the prices and escalation formula for the gas to be supplied by the Iranian company.
The joint venture have however not been successful in mobilising the funds for the project with most of the foreign banks from which it has sought loans giving a lukewarm response . Therefore, it is likely the financial arrangement may also be included in the scope of the turn-key contracts.
The company is now seriously
to float a holding comany in India to develop ports. This is based on the
companies reception that the" Bidding becomes simpler in case the company
is registered in India."
India's Larsen & Toubro
(L&T) that hold 1/3 of the share in ISPL while the rest of the
shares are owned by Stevedoring Services of America and Precious
Shipping PCL a Singapore based company.
Almost a year ago, Kinhill bagged the contract for $220 Million Coal handling project in Paradeep Port. More recently, Kinhill has bagged the West Bokaro Coal Mining expansion for Tata Iron & Steel Company. Kinhills role in the project will be to undertake mine-planning and the underground water system.
It is learnt that Kinhill has also submitted its bid for the Gopalpur Major port project in Orissa and is also seriously looking at some more road infrastructure projects in the other indian states.
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The Seven, whose bids were recieved are: British Telecom-MCI, Telstra, Cable & Wireless, Global One (a Consortium between Deutsche Telecom, Sprint and France Telecom), Hutchison Teleglobe and North American Gateways.
The Project envisages setting up of a $500 million sub continental hub and terrestrial links for routing international traffic from neighubouring countries.
Edward J Zander, President of Sun Microsystems spoke to 'Economic Times' during Sun's second International Internet Associate Symposium held at Berlin recently: "We know we have't done enough there and I don't really know the reason, but it is a fascinating country, a very big market and we have to grow it."
Elaborating on this theme, Lionel Lim, Managing Director (Asia South) was categorical that he does not look at India merely as a big market but as a strategic partner. Further, he said that all that other companies have done so far is to treat India as a 'sweat shop'. "We look at it differently, we want to build up global companies so that they can learn and go global."
Therefore, Sun has made several tie-ups in India Including with Wipro Systems, Microland, Tata Infotech and Infosys.
The central decision is in line with India's commitment to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to totally throw open the domestic telecom sector to international competition by 2005.
Mr. Verma was speaking at the inagural proceedings of Gateway '97- the international exposition on multimedia and information technology organised by the west Bengal Electronic Industry Development Corporation Ltd (Webel) at Calcutta Science City.
Later speaking to Economic Times Mr. Smith indicated he sees bigger expansion prospects for General Motors in India not in cars, but in telephony and computer software.
General Motors' sudsidiary Hughes in partnership with the Ispat group, has bagged the licence for Maharashtra circle, and is going full strean ahead. The VSAT operations of Hughes have also fared well (it has just bagged big order from the Reserve Bank of India), and this subsidiary has excellent expansion prospects.
The computer software division
has also done very well, he says. Indian skills have proved
very competitive, and will used not just for lower-end software,
but also for complete solutions, where the value addition is much
higher. The company has 500 engineers already, finds that global
demend is booming, and will expand rapidly. Its own engineers will
provide the software for the big Hughes-Ispat project in Maharshtra,
as well as other ventures in India (which include auto finance and
auto ancillaries).
Other major project that Enron is looking in to include a pipe line from Bangladesh to India and regasification project in the eastern coast.
Enron Corporation has identified India and Brazil a top investment destinations. This follows the downgrading of China and Pakistan from its lists of priority countries.
Qualcomm's investments plans include buying strategic equity of around 10 per cent in basic telecom companies, setting up joint ventures for manufacturing handsets for wireless in local loop (WLL) phones, setting up a corporate office and focussing on software development.
Qualcomm in negotiation with several operations for setting their WLL network for the basic telephony service in India.
The reports indicate Indian deal 76 million with Essar for Punjab circles has already finalised. The company has also extended bridge loans and may arrange long-term financing for Essar.
The new policy aims at attracting Rs.100 billion from both domestic and foreign investors for building new airports and upgrading existing facilities.
The policy also addresses the problem of greater transparency in the decision making process.
Special attention will be given to speedy handling of cargo. Cargo clearence would be on a 24 hours basis and airport would have special infrastructure for cargo handling such as satellite facilities and other advanced facility along with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for speedy cargo movement.
A detailed study and master plan will be drawn for development of commercial activity and facilities for maximisation of revenue.
The pattern for operating company
would be 'buil-own-transfer', 'buil-own-lease-transfer', 'build-own-operate'
'lease-develop-operate',
'joint venture' and 'management contract'.
The commission has recommended the out-right sale of Engineers Projects India Limited (EPIL).
The commission has recommended that the government should sell 30% of it's equity through a strategic sale in Engineers India Ltd (EIL). Also, the enterprises should establish an employee stock option plan and reserve 10 per cent equity towards this. Besides this, 10 per cent of EIL's equity should be offered to public sector oil companies, as well as SAIL, GAIL and NTPC. After a strategic partner is inducted , 18 per cent of the government's equity should be offered to domestic investors, thereby reducing its equity holding to 26 per cent.
In case of IBP Ltd., Mr. Ramakrishna said the company's plan to go in for public offer should be reviewed and instead 33.9 per cent of the government's share holding should be offered to an oil company through an international global bidding process.
In case of NEPA, the commission has recommended that the government should offer a minimum of 51 per cent, which could go up to 100 per cent, along with the transfer of management to a strategic partner.
The commission has also recommended the government should offload 74% of its equity in Hindustan Prefab Ltd. through strategic offers.
In the case of the two ITDC subsidiaries Ranchi Ashok Bihar Hotel Corporation and Utkal Ashok Hotel- the disinvestment commission has recommended outright sale of these enterprises to private enterpreneurs through a transparent competitive bidding process.
In case of NTPC, the commission has recommended the government should not disinvestment at this juncture as reforms in the power sector was still being put in place. If the government disinvested its shareholding in NTPC now, it would result in considerable under valuation of its shares.
Mr. Orlando Ayala, the vice- president of Microsoft International operation, while confirming the Microsoft plan praised Indian software skills and the advantage offered by India as a location for the centre.
Ericsson has already invested
$ 5 million in the company and will likely to increase its investment to
$10 million within three years. The centre would also work on basic switching
technology, core technology, mobile switching and base station
controlers. It will also serve as a source of trained software
specialists for other Ericsson software specialists for other Ericsson
software development centres. The strength of software
engineers at the centre is expected to go up from 25 at
present to over 150 by the year 2000.
Michel Van Moer, managing director, Mach SA, said that with proposed investments of Rs.10 crore, Mach India offers a fully operational clearing house processing facility for handling subscriber call data generated by Indian GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) cellular operators.
Mach SA is also considering Bangalore as a centre for outsearching Mach SA's software needs, he said. " It would not make sense to not use the software talent available in Bangalore".
Mach India will be headed by Yeshvir Monterio and Sanjay Manohar will be director, sales and marketing. Both were earlier with Digital Equipment (India).
Mach's core business is supporting the exchange of billing information regarding calls made on foreign networks. mach Indian's service range from roaming agreements' negotiation and administration, basic data and financial clearing, and fraud prevention.
Ing L Maderthaner, president of the Austrian federal economic chamber, said the Austrain company Taan Papier, said to be the world's largest manufacturer of special paper for cigarette tips would tie up with ITC soon. Taan Paiper would hold the majority stake in the joint venture.
Mr. Maderthaner is leading an Austrian trade delegation to India to explore business opportunities. He said the Indian market offered immense trade opportunities for Austria. Bilateral trade has picked up after liberalisation, he said.
The project is to come up on build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) principle and is probably the first in the country on domestic water supply. The State Government and Bangalore City Corporation will not have any financial commitment in this project. The tenders should be issued shortly to the prequalified contractors.
US based energy group, Black & Veatch, has emerged the lowest bidder for the engineering procurement and construction contract.
J Mackowski, the US based partner has walked out of the project citing its reservation on the litigation, and the developers are hoping to finalise a new partner soon.
The project is to use the circulating fluidised bed technology, which reduces pollutants in emissions.
This moves effectively shelves the proposed joint venture between Jindal strips and Ugine which envisiaged o setting up a 4 million ton stainless steel project in Gujarat.
The shelving of the project was linked to duty cuts introduced by the government, which made imported steel cheaper, and thus cut into profitability of domestic stainless steel companies.
The joint venture will also serve as a sourcing base for exporting Edding's product's overseas. It product portfolio will include superior quality specially markers and highlighters such as text markers, permanent markers, board markers, graphic art markers, special markers paint and decorative markers. According to Rotomac sources, these products are currently not available in the Indian Market.
The joint venture company - Edding Rotomac Private Ltd - will market its product in India under the brand name "Edding", say sources. The joint venture will target both individual as well as Industrial consumers. Edding Rotomac will make royalty payment to German company for the technology transfered by it to the joint venture. The royalty payment will be made at the rate of 5 per cent of domestic sales and 8 per cent of export sales.
These companies think that the growth in the next five years will be substantial, particularly in the energy sector, which accounts for about 72 percent of the total projected investment of $5 billion, said the survey.
The favourite sectors for major investment, besides infrastructure are banking, computer software, manufacturing and professional service including sales and servicing. The favourite destinations for America are the metropolitan areas of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Maharshtra will continue to be the most favourite state with 67% of the total projected US investment going to it in the next five years , followed by 14% for Delhi and 9% in Karnataka.
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The Fiat project, sprawling
over 200 acres of plot at an industrial estate run by Maharashtra
Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) at Ranjangaon in Pune district,
is expected to manufacture a hundred thousand cars per annum. Fiat
proposes to manufacture at least two versions of its Palio model -- three-box
sedan and Station Wagon.
Neopharma has a turn over of around Rs. 100 million and is just about breaking even, its biggest brands are Broncordil, vitamin' E' preparation Covita, skin ointment Soliderm and anti-TB preparation Inapas.
The company has one unit at Vakola in Mumbai where it makes formulations. It has been 250 and 300 employees. The Kalpataru group acquired the company in 1992.
The US parent also hopes to pump between $50-80 million into its research arm once the new patents legislation comes through, even as it countinues to push a proposal to set up a wholly-owned research subsidiary.
The US drug major is also talking to leading Indian drug companies for a stategic alliance that will develop and market a range of new products that Pfizer will bring into the country once the patents legislation comes through.
For starters, CA has forged a 51:49 venture with the Chatterjee Group, an affiliate of Soros Fund Management, to set up a cutting-edge software development centre in Calcutta to service its 1.7 lakh global clients.
The software development centre will be the nucleus of the proposed Rs. 320 billion 'Asian Gateway', knowledge-intensive industrial complex near Salt Lake
Several leading domestic financial institutions are in talks with Euroclear to awail its service for investing in overseas securities. Currently, only the UK based office of Kotak Mahindra is a member of Euroclear.
