Reliance bags oil block in Oman
New Delhi: Reliance Industries has bagged a deep sea oil and gas block in the Gulf of Oman, and is looking for oil assets in Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This is the second oil and gas block Reliance has acquired outside India.

Reliance also holds a twenty per cent stake in the exploration Block 9 in Yemen where a significant oil discovery has already been made.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance, along with his key aides met up with the visiting Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al Niami yesterday in the capital.
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Hay Group launches India operations
New Delhi: The US-based global human resources management consultancy firm Hay Group has launched its Indian operations with the opening of an office in New Delhi. With presence in 42 countries across 77 offices, India is one of the three main markets for Hay Group investments - China and Russia being other two priority markets, the company has said in a statement here.

The Hay Group solves business issues of CEOs, other senior executives and top HR leaders by providing customised solutions that leverage the organisation and human resources to deliver tangible bottom-line impact, it said.

According to Hay's the firm's association with India dates back to the 60s, when the late Dr David C. McClelland, Professor at Harvard and co-founder of McBer & Co (which was later merged into the Hay Group), did a lot of pioneering work in the areas of human motivation and economic achievement with entrepreneurs in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

The New Delhi office of Hay Group has been staffed by members from other offices of the Hay Group as well as local talent with the office poised for rapid growth in line with client needs.
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Minda's European operations to be based at Netherlands
New Delhi: Automotive security systems major Minda Huf Ltd has announced the setting up of its European operations in the Netherlands under the name of Mind Huf Europe B.V.

The move is aimed to cater to the growing requirements of its European customers such as Piaggio, Peugeot, Ducati, and Aprilia among others. The new set-up would provide logistics, business development, engineering and quality support to its customers. At present, the company claims to be catering to 50 per cent of the European two-wheeler market.

The European subsidiary would contribute about half of Minda Huf's existing export turnover of Rs40 crore.
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Maruti hikes prices
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog Ltd has announced a nominal increase in prices of all its models except the Maruti 800. According to a company statement, the price increase on the Maruti 800 will be announced shortly.

The current increase varies from about 0.3 per cent to 1.34 per cent or from Rs2,000 to Rs 3,000. The price increase is due to increase in input costs, the company said. The models of which prices have been increased include the Alto, Zen, WagonR, Esteem, Gypsy, Omni and Versa.

The largest price increase has been on the Omni. The Omni E will now cost Rs2,27,177 up from the earlier Rs2,24,177.
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Tata Motors sales up twenty two per cent
Mumbai: Tata Motors has reported a twenty two per cent increase in its vehicle sales during December 2004 at 31,946 units compared with 26,265 vehicles in December 2003. Sales of commercial vehicles in December 2004 were at a record high for a month at 18,467 units, higher by 23 per cent over sales in the previous corresponding period.

For the April-December 2004 period, Tata Motors sold 2,79,151 vehicles, including exports, as against 216,904 vehicles in the year-ago period. This represents a 29 per cent growth. Commercial vehicles offtake during this nine-month period stood at 1,34,861 units, up by 29 per cent from the year-ago period's sales of 1,04,618 vehicles.

Medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales in December 2004 were 12,501 units, higher by 17 per cent from 10,667 units previously. For the April-December 2004 period, their sales stood at 92,115 units, higher by 31 per cent from 70,527 units.

Sales of light commercial vehicles (LCV) grew by 38 per cent to 5,966 units (4,311) in December 2004; for the nine-month period, they increased by 25 per cent to 42,746 vehicles.

Passenger vehicle sales during December 2004 grew by 33 per cent in the domestic market alone. Cumulative domestic sales moved up by 29 per cent to 1,24,996 vehicles.

In December 2004, Tata Motors sold 4,993 Indicas, a 40.5 per cent increase over the earlier year. Cumulative sales stood at 74,663 units.

The company said it had ended calendar 2004 with a total sales of 1,67,797 passenger vehicles in the domestic market. However, exports edged down in December 2004 at 3,852 vehicles as against 4,011 units in December 2003. Cumulative exports for April-December 2004 stood at 19,294 vehicles (15,066 units).
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Toyota posts twenty two per cent growth in sales
Bangalore: Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has posted a 20 per cent increase in sales to 47,851 vehicles during 2004 compared with the same period last year. A press release from the company said it had sold 36,698 units of the Qualis between January and December 2004 registering a growth of 20 per cent over 2003.

Corolla registered sales of 10,195 units during 2004, a growth of 25 per cent over the previous year. The company sold 941 Camrys during 2004 and 17 Land Cruiser Prados during December.

This year the company intends to consolidate its market share and increase production capacity from 45,000 units per annum to 60,000 units.
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Net 4 India makes offer on registration of domain names
New Delhi: Net 4 India Ltd, which was recently appointed the registrar for `.in' domain names, is offering in-country domain names at an annual fee of Rs800 per name, wherein Rs50 from each registration will be donated to the tsunami relief fund.

"To begin with, the applicants will have to book the .in domain name for five years. In addition, they can buy more in-country domain names such as co.in, .firm.in, .gen.in, .net.in, .org and .ind at Rs 400 each," a company release said here.
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LG launches DTH ready Flat TV
New Delhi: LG Electronics is targeting a 40 per cent growth in turnover this calendar year to Rs9,000 crore compared with Rs6,500 crore in the last calendar year (2004). Much of the sales momentum in 2005, according to the company, is to be driven by the company's IT products and the GSM mobile phone segments.

While the contribution of IT-peripherals and GSM phones to the total sales stood at 11 per cent and 3 per cent respectively in 2003, they are expected to increase to 14 per cent and 11 per cent in 2005.

LG Electronics India has also that it will start production of the economy models of its GSM mobile handsets in India from January 15, and expects the category to grow at 10 per cent in 2005.

LG is also looking at exporting the lower end GSM handsets to West Asia and South Africa. In addition, it will be investing Rs300 crore over the next five years in R&D for GSM phones in India, the company has said.

LG has launched its direct-to-home (DTH) ready flat TV. The company expects the DTH range to contribute 10 per cent of its total CTV sales in 2005. LG is targeting to sell 3.5 million CTVs this year.

LG has tied up with Doordarshan for the Digi Direct TV, which comes with a built-in DTH decoder. The Digi Direct TV will be able to receive about 33 free-to-air channels including 17 DD and 12 radio channels including two FM channels.
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