IT upgrade for Customs, Excise and service tax depts.
New Delhi: The government has sanctioned Rs167.05 crore for upgrading the IT infrastructure of customs, excise and service tax departments to boost trade.

The up-gradation drive involves setting up central servers and storage area networks along with disaster recovery infrastructure having capacity to handle all transactions relating to customs, excise and data warehouse.

A network would also be set up to connect 70 customs locations from the present 23, with the central network 'ICEGATE' for allowing users to log into the central servers.

The project also envisages setting up of a network that would connect all central excise commissionerates to the central servers.
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NIGEC and GAIL agree on gas delivery at Indian border
New Delhi: The National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) has agreed to the proposal of GAIL (India) Ltd to have the delivery point of gas at the Indian border.

The breakthrough in the ongoing discussions between India and Iran on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline was achieved at a high-level meeting between GAIL and NIGEC on Tuesday, a GAIL statement has said here on Thursday.

GAIL said that the delivery prices of natural gas would be concluded in three months, after detailed discussions on the project and its cost.

During the discussions, it was also decided that a Broad Overarching Agreement between the three countries involved would be desirable to conclude the issue expeditiously.
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GSM World Congress: Alcatel may set up WiMax research centre in India
New Delhi: Global telecom equipment vendors, including Nokia and Alcatel, have affirmed their plans to make India a manufacturing hub. At a meeting with the Communication and IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, Serge Tchuruk, Chairman, Alcatel, announced that the company was examining the possibility of setting up a global research centre on WiMax in India.

Maran had meetings with other international vendors, including Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia and Nortel, on the sidelines of the ongoing GSM World Congress at Cannes, France. The Minister also met the GSM Association Board Members.

Jorge Ollila, Chairman & CEO, Nokia, affirmed that the company's intention to set up a handset-manufacturing unit and also indicated that they would set up a committee to look into the possibility of infrastructure manufacture. He also agreed to bring the company's board members to India in May to finalise the issue.

Simon Leung, Senior Vice-President, Asia Pacific, Motorola, indicated that the company would explore the possibility of setting up a manufacturing base in India. Carl Svanberg, CEO, Ericsson, reiterated that the company intended to set up an infrastructure manufacturing unit.

Maran apprised the manufacturers about the various policy initiatives taken by the Government of India in the telecom sector. During the meeting with the GSM Association Board, GSMA along with Motorola, announced a special initiative to launch a $30-handset for emerging markets. Maran stated that this initiative would improve the affordability and help expand the market faster.

In another meeting between Maran and the EU Commissioner, Mr Reding, it was decided that both India and the European Union (EU) would jointly address the telecom issues pertaining to security, inter-operability, content and roaming in the next Joint Working Group meeting to be held in May.
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Poland offers Indian industry major incentives
Hyderabad: The Republic of Poland has announced major tax and other incentives to the Indian entrepreneurs setting up manufacturing units in the country, which include grants for new investments, creation of jobs and training employees and support from International funding agencies.

Addressing a gathering of industrialists at the headquarters of Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commence and Industry (FAPCCI) here, the Polish Ambassador to India, Krzysztof Majka, has said that Poland was an ideal gateway for Indian businesses to access the huge European markets.

Explaining the advantages of investing in Poland, Majka said the country was listed by international agencies to be one of the global hotspots for FDI investments due to its high human productivity combined with low labour costs and access to the common European markets.

The Ambassador said that Poland has intrinsic strengths such as having the seventh largest human capital, highly skilled labour with the lowest costs in manufacturing, huge market size, lowest inflation and a high success rate for foreign companies.

"India will benefit from EU enlargement because it will deal with bigger and more uniform market where the same set of rules, standards and trade procedures apply…The size of the common market, after enlargement, has increased about 20 per cent and the new EU countries are becoming a growing segment of the EU exports and imports. India will benefit because of generally easier access to the new member countries' market, because of lower customs tariffs, which will benefit exporters," Majka said.

According to Majka, the areas where greater cooperation possibilities between India and Poland existed include power generation, mining, railways, infrastructure and construction, food processing, chemical industry, civil aviation and maritime economy.
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Austria for greater trade ties with India
New Delhi: The President of Austria, Dr Heinz Fischer, has called for a new spirit of openness in Indo-Austrian trade ties.Addressing the `India-Austria: Partners in Progress' business meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Thursday, Dr Fischer said, India is seen as one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world and it offers a vast and promising market for Austrian products.

He said the bilateral economic cooperation was based on a strong institutional framework. A number of important agreements between the countries have been concluded, namely, avoidance of double taxation, promotion and protection of investments, bilateral economic relations and technological cooperation.

The Austrian President invited the Indian industry to use Austria as a gateway to the flourishing markets of the enlarged European Union (EU), which offers a single market of 500 million consumers.
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Prasar Bharati plans to seek funding from World Bank
New Delhi: Prasar Bharati Corporation is looking for funds and has asked the Union Government to facilitate in receiving assistance from the World Bank

According to Prasar Bharati, the International Finance Corporation, the lending arm of the World Bank, is looking at investing in the broadcasting or media sector. It is looking to assist broadcasting projects that have high development impact. The assistance could range between $10 million and $100 million to develop its other new projects.

Unlike BBC, which received over $5 billion as assistance from the British Government, the Indian public broadcaster receives very little assistance from the Government.

Prasar Bharti said that the national broadcaster required funds to carry forward work in new technologies such as broadband and DTH (direct-to-home), apart from the digitalisation process. It has also been making efforts to sell its channels in foreign lands, where it targets the Indian Diaspora.
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IDC: Indian PC market grew 32 per cent in 2004
New Delhi: Logging its strongest ever growth since the year 2000, the Indian personal computer (PC) market is estimated to have jumped 32 per cent in 2004 to notch 3.4 million units.

IDC India's preliminary market findings on the Indian Desktop and Portable market indicate a growth of 32 per cent in 2004 over 2003. This is the strongest growth seen in these form-factors after 2000 when the market grew by more than 60 per cent, research firm IDC said in a release.

The study attributed the market's robust performance to several factors including two rounds of duty revisions in the PC hardware space in 2004. As a positive result of these changes in the tariff structure, a significant portion of the market activity reserved for 2005 was advanced to 2004, IDC said.
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