Israeli Dy.PM along with Netanyahu to visit India
Hyderabad: The Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, along with Benjamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister and now Finance Minster, will visit India during the first week of December.

The leaders will be accompanied by a large delegation of leading companies from Israel. In a press release, the Indo-Israel Chambers of Commerce and Industry has said that in addition to meeting key officials in New Delhi, efforts are on to bring the delegation to Hyderabad as well.

While trade between India and Israel has crossed $2 billion, further expansion of trade and cooperation in various sectors of the industry are being proposed.
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Chidambaram affirms public-private partnership
New Delhi: The UPA Government is taking all possible steps to enhance public-private investment for promoting economic growth and poverty reduction in the country, the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, has said.

Chairing the first meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Finance Ministry, Chidambaram said that an enabling environment was necessary for attracting investment along with proper infrastructure and larger investible resources.

Affirming that the Government was committed to promoting public-private partnerships (PPP) for infrastructure development, Chidambaram pointed out that the recent developments in the infrastructure sector, including roads and ports, were good examples of such partnerships. To support such projects, the Government has proposed to set up a special `viability gap funding' facility.

He said that to qualify for viability gap funding, the projects must be implemented with at least 40 per cent private equity in these specific sectors, namely, roads, railways, sea-ports, airports, power, water supply, sewerage and solid waste disposal in urban areas and international convention centres.
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FDI in single product branded retailing may be allowed
New Delhi: The Government is likely to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in single product branded retailing of their own products by foreign companies, the Minister for Commerce and Industries, Kamal Nath, said here today.

This in effect means that foreign companies would be able to sell products through their own retail shops in the country. Till now this has been done through the franchisee route. However, the Minister did not clarify to what extent FDI would be allowed in this sector.

Kamal Nath said that while FDI in general retailing may have an adverse impact in terms of destroying employment of the huge small trading community, which accounts for almost 94 per cent of the employment in the unorganised sector, the dedicated single product retail sector did not affect employment.

According to the Minister, the Government is expecting a quantum jump of around 70 per cent in actual FDI inflows during the current fiscal and expects that FDI inflow would be around $5 billion as compared to $2.8 billion in 2003-04.

On the ongoing review of the Press Note 18, which requires foreign companies having existing Indian joint ventures to obtain a no objection certificate from the Indian partner before re-entering the market, the Minister said that the Government was reviewing it. The Government would come out with policy guidelines within a fortnight, he said.
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