Royal Sundaram targets Rs 120-crore in first year
Chennai: Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Company Ltd, a 26:74 joint venture between the Royal & Sun Alliance of the UK and the Chennai-based TVS Group has launched its personal and commercial insurance covers in Chennai on Monday. The insurance JV, first among the private players to start insurance foray expects to do business worth Rs 120 crore in the first full year of operation.

The venture hopes to start making cash profits within five years and is targeting 50 per cent annual growth initially. Mr. GK Raman, chairman, Royal Sundaram on the eve of launch has said that the alliance was bullish on the Indian market and was expecting revenue to flow in from both new businesses, as well as from business of existing players.

The company offers a balanced portfolio of commercial and personal insurance policies to the consumers via a number of easily accessible distribution channels. The personal lines of products include motor, health, travel, personal accident as well as home covers, while commercial lines include fire, marine, engineering, public liability and product liability covers.
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Industrial output slips to 5.4 per cent
New Delhi: Industrial output fell to 5.4 per cent in the first 10 months ended January, against 6.3 per cent in the same period last fiscal on poor performance by manufacturing and electricity, industrial production growth. For January, the index fell to 2.8 per cent against 4.9 per cent in January 2000.

Growth in the manufacturing sector declined by 1.2 per cent to 5.6 per cent during the first 10 months of 2000-01 from 6.8 per cent during the same period of the previous year. Manufacturing slipped to 2.9 per cent in January 2001 (5.6 per cent). The index for electricity fell from 7.2 per cent in April-January last year to 4.5 per cent in the same period in 2000-01. In January, the index for electricity slid to 1.4 per cent in 2000-01 against 3.2 per cent in the same period last year.

Mining sector was the only area, which saw an impressive growth. It grew to 4.2 per cent in the April-January period against 0.5 per cent in the same time last year. In January too, the mining sector grew to 3.5 per cent against 0.4 per cent in the same month last year. On the use-based classification, basic and capital goods suffered a setback against a good show by the consumer goods and durables. Basic goods showed a growth of 4.6 per cent in the April-January period against 5 per cent last year.
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IFC to invest $330 million in India this fiscal year
Mumbai: The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will be investing about $330 million in India in fiscal year 2001-'02, almost accounting for ten per cent of its total foreign direct investment (FDI). About 60 per cent of these investments have already been approved and rest is to be approved by June.

India has already emerged to be the single largest recipient of IFC funds in terms of new approvals worldwide. India has been the sixth largest recipient of IFC funds over the years. IFC has a $608 million portfolio in India as of December 31, 2000, which consists of investments in 70 companies.

IFC focus would include financial services, infrastructure, health and education, small-and-medium-enterprises (SMEs) and the new economy sector. In the finance sector, IFC will concentrate on structured finance products like securitisation, housing finance, trade finance and bringing small-and-medium-enterprises to the market.
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