Bilateral trade between India and China zooms
Beijing: India-China bilateral trade during January-June this year reached $3.4 billion, up 67 per cent over the same period last year, according to statistics released by General Administration of Customs of China.

While Indian exports to China recorded an impressive growth of 101.5 per cent to touch $1.979 billion, imports from China saw a moderate growth of 35 per cent to total $1.478 billion.

The trade balance for the period was in favour of India to the tune of $501 million. Official sources said trade enquiries from Chinese companies have boomed after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit and this year's total trade is set to surpass last year's trade turnover of $4.9 billion.

In June alone, India exported goods worth $295 million, up 86 per cent over January 2002. The major items exported were iron and steel, up 1452 per cent, ores, slag and ash up 74 per cent, plastics sector registered a 27 per cent growth. organic and inorganic chemicals also registered a growth.
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Trai to bring out paper on the TDSAT verdict
Mumbai: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) intends to come out with a consultative paper in two weeks on operational issues in the TDSAT judgement like entry fees payable by WLL operators and compensation to cellular players to ensure a level playing field according to Mr Arun Shourie minister of telecommunications.

TDSAT has allowed WLL limited mobile services but recommended various concessions for the cellular industry to provide a level playing field.

On the entry fee norms for WLL services, the minister said the judgment by TDSAT says that this fee should be charged and the government would request Trai to come up with alternate formulas.
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Sorabjee says strike is employees' invaluable right
New Delhi: Attorney-General Soli J Sorabjee is in disagreement with the Supreme Court ruling on right to strike, and says its observations that government employees had "no moral or equitable right to go on strike" were "uncalled for" and "beyond comprehension".

Taking an overall view of the working conditions in India, the attorney-general said, "There can be horrendous situations in which the employees have no effective mechanism for redressal of their grievances and are left with no option but to resort to strike."

But he agreed that strikes caused grave inconvenience to public saying, "No one can dispute that strikes should not be indiscriminate and resorted to for trivial reasons."
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CII-Ascon survey sees good growth in service sectors
New Delhi: The latest survey undertaken by the Confederation of Indian Industry-Associated Councils (Ascon) on the services sector indicates that the services sector has continued its steady growth during April-June this year as compared to the same period in the previous year.

According to the survey the fastest growing segment was the cellular services sector, which registered a growth of 115 per cent during April-June this year as compared to the same period in the previous year. The survey suggests that the present growth rate is expected to continue over the next few months.

Other sectors that showed an impressive growth were housing finance at around 35 percent the information technology industry as turnover in hardware registered a growth of 16 per cent against 12 per cent last year and sale of personal computers and software recorded a growth of 12 per cent and 20 per cent.

The thermal power sector grew by 6.4 per cent while the hydroelectric sector recorded a negative growth of six per cent in production.
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Global consultants say India 5th emerging retail economy
New Delhi: Knight Frank, global real estate consultants, has ranked India fifth in the list of 30 emerging retail markets and said that the organised retail segment in India would grow by an impressive 20 per cent rate by 2010. It said the organised retail sector was growing at 8.5 per cent per annum.

The size of the organised retail industry has been put at Rs 19,500 crore (4.24 billion dollar) in the last fiscal.

Investment in retail real estate segment yields 13-16 per cent return which is quite high when compared with the returns from residential and office segment.

HDFC, the investor in Shoppers' Stop in Pune, recorded a 15.43 per cent net return per annum on its initial investment while the space leased by Addidas in Ansal Plaza, Delhi, yielded a net return of 15.84 per cent to the investor.

The study predicted that about 25 million square feet of organised retail space will come up in India by 2005.

Initially, the retail sector growth took place in Tier I cities while now the retailers are focussing on Tier II cities like Nagpur, Indore, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Cochin.
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