Jack Straw: UK will be more liberal on issue of visas
New Delhi: The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said that the UK would take a liberal view on granting visas to Indians. Speaking to MPs and business leaders in the country, he said: "We grant 260,000 visa applications to India per year, which is by far the highest granted by any British High Commission anywhere in the world. I assure you that we will be even more liberal."

He added that with the opening up of more direct flights between the two countries, more Indians will be allowed to visit the UK.
He also said that the UK was in favour of expansion of the UN Security Council and favours granting of permanent seats to Germany, Brazil, Japan, and India.

The UK receives 60 per cent of all Indian investment in Europe with almost 500 companies investing in Britain, two-thirds of them in the knowledge-based economy.
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Dutch Govt. keen on boosting trade ties
Kolkata: The Netherlands has recently initiated several new programmes to promote bilateral trade with India, said Ms Desiree Bonis, Deputy Chief of Mission, Royal Netherlands Embassy, New Delhi.

Speaking at an interactive session on "Doing business with The Netherlands," organised by CII-eastern region, on Wednesday, she said while the Netherlands was the fifth largest investor in India, the amount is less than 0.5 per cent of total Dutch FDI worldwide. "The same is true for Dutch exports to India, which amount to less than 0.5 per cent of total Dutch exports, leaving enough room for expansion and growth."

The four areas identified for greater Indo-Dutch economic cooperation in the immediate term are agriculture and food-processing, banking and financial services, infrastructure/logistics, particularly water management sector and IT/business process outsourcing.

According to Sanjay Budhia, Chairman, CII National Committee on Exports, it had now become imperative for Indian business to be in the search for new markets, and the Netherlands is one such destination. He put the Indo-Dutch bilateral trade in 2003 at around 1.52 billion euros.
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Mumbai High production at five year high
New Delhi: After a five-year gap, crude oil production from the Mumbai High field has touched 2,70,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD), ONGC Ltd said in a statement issued here on Friday.

The Mumbai High Oil field, one of the most-prolific producers of sweet and light crude in the world, was brought to production in 1976. But, like all maturing fields the world over, production from the giant field started declining in the 90s.
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India expresses interest in four Kazakhi oil fields
New Delhi: India has expressed its interest in picking up stakes in four oil-and-gas properties in Kazakhstan, as part of its plan to secure long-term oil supplies.

The Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, expressed the country's interest in these properties during a speech in Astana (Kazakhstan), a Government statement said here on Friday.

The Government is keen to buy equity in the Tengiz and Kashagan oilfields as well as fields in Kurmangazy and Darkhan regions, where oil or gas is yet to be discovered. ONGC Ltd will invest in these fields, the statement said, adding that the state-run oil firm will set up offices in the Central Asian nation.

While the Russian state-owned companies OAO Rosneft and OAO Zarubezhneft each own 25 per cent of Kurmangazy, which has as much as 7.3 billion barrels of oil in reserves, the Kazakhi state-owned oil-and-gas company Kazmunaigaz holds the rest.
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Inflation falls to 5.01 per cent
New Delhi: Inflation fell for the tenth consecutive week to 5.01 per cent in the week ended February 5. It has now touched the lowest level after the UPA came into power, due to cheaper vegetables, fruits and edible oils.

Reflecting the "measured" steps taken by the Centre and RBI, the widely tracked point-to-point Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation touched 10-months low falling by 0.24 per cent from the previous week's level of 5.25 per cent.

It was as high as 6.15 per cent in the year ago period.

The WPI, however, rose by 0.1 per cent to 188.6 points mainly due to costlier fuel products, even as primary items became cheaper while manufactured products' prices remained unchanged. The index was 179.6 points in the previous year period.

The government revised upwards inflation to 6.84 per cent in the week ended December 11 as compared to provisional figure of 6.73 per cent. The WPI stood corrected at 188.9 points during the second week of December as against the provisional estimate of 188.7 points.

The index of mass consumption Primary Articles' group was down by 0.1 per cent to 184.9 points despite costlier food products and it was 182 points in the year ago period. Food Articles' group index rose by 0.1 per cent to 183.8 points due to costlier eggs (6 per cent), fish-inland and fish-marine and bajra (2 per cent), condiments and spices and rice (1 per cent each).

Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants' group index rose by 0.3 per cent to 288.9 points due to costlier Aviation Turbine Fuel (10 per cent), furnace oil (6 per cent) and naphtha (3 per cent). The index was 262.7 points a year ago.

The index for heavy-weighted Manufactured Products' group was unchanged at the previous week's level of 167.5 points despite cheaper food products and textiles and it was 160.3 points in the previous year period.
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