Pak PM Aziz says Indian companies not welcome
Kuala Lumpur: Indian companies won't be welcome until the Kashmir issue is resolved, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said.

"The atmospherics between the two countries are getting better. But the economic relations have to move in tandem with progress on many issues including the core issue of Kashmir," Aziz said.

Pakistan, poised for economic growth of at least 7.5 per cent this year, has removed all barriers to foreign investment. Aziz said the country's economy has seen a major turnaround in the last five years.

"Pakistan has a very open economy. There are no sectors not open to foreign investments," said Aziz, who is on a tour of Southeast Asian countries to drum up foreign investor interest.
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Ratan Tata: Investment panel to submit interim report in sixty days
Bangalore: The Government investment panel, set up under the Chairmanship of Ratan Tata, will submit its interim report to the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, within sixty days. Ratan Tata said that the final report would be submitted later.

Speaking to newspersons on the occasion of the launch of Ace, the mini-truck from Tata Motors, he said that the interim report would contain a few sectors that would be identified in the final one. He did not reveal the names of the sectors.

As for his company, Tata said that cars being exported to MG Rover would now be diverted to other markets in the world. Tata Motors will strengthen its offering of multi-utility vehicles and sports utility vehicles, he added.
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Cartosat to open up new market in remote sensing
Bangalore: The CARTOSAT-1, will be the world's first satellite to offer pure stereo or 3D earth imageries, and is already evoking interest among potential users for various map-based applications.

Stereo imaging is considered the next big thing in remote sensing, and when commissioned in the next three months after tests, the satellite is expected to open up new market opportunities for ISRO in both the civilian and defence realms.

Along with Cartosat-2 that is slated for launch in over a year, this is expected to give a major push to map-based developmental and commercial applications, digital elevation models and value added products.

ISRO officials said that the high resolution of 2.5 m for 3D pictures that Cartosat-1 would offer from its two cameras (again a first) does not exist in the market at present, and accordingly has evoked interest amongst customers.

Stereo resolution can generate good maps and act as a spur to the digital terrain mapping industry. Potential users could be defence and security-related entities, private agencies that are into connectivity, infrastructure, road and oil pipeline alignment; real estate, mining companies; and government bodies involved in urban planning, resource and agri-mapping.

When Cartosat-2 is launched, it would be offering far more superior products of the order of 1 metre resolution. Though ISRO reached the one metre capability three years ago with its experimental satellite TES, the data is not commercially available.

The new data sets would add to Antrix's revenue, which touched Rs370 crore for the year ended March 2005, officials have said. The turnover saw a growth of 25 per cent over the last fiscal. Antrix is the coomercial arm of ISRO.

Antrix has an exclusive marketing tie-up with Space Imaging (SI), a Lockheed-Raytheon company, to sell its imageries globally. While SI has data rights for the previous remote-sensor Resourcesat (IRS-P6), ISRO is yet to seal the deal for Cartosat.

Antrix, with 20-25 per cent market share, figures among the five global majors. The entire global imagery market, dominated by US Landsat and French SPOT satellites is put at $ 400 million and growing. Antrix has been upgrading equipment at its 12 ground stations in various countries with proprietary software and hardware to generate 3D pictures. It is also looking at new countries to put up ground stations.
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CAG: Annual growth rate of fiscal liability declining
New Delhi: According to a CAG report, the average growth rate of fiscal liabilities has been decelerating over the years, however, the aggregate fiscal liabilities of the government have risen by 7.20 per cent at Rs16,59,634 crore during 2003-04, as against Rs15,48,176 crore in the previous fiscal.

Government liabilities grew by 10.62 per cent in 2002-03 year-on-year and exhibited annual average growth rate of 11.85 per cent during the ninth five year plan and 12.48 per cent in eighth plan, the report for 2003-04 said.

Internal liabilities constituted the bulk as external debt comprised just over 11 per cent in 2003-04 and grew at an average annual rate of 11.88 per cent from 1992 to the financial year '04, according to the report tabled in Parliament today.

Of internal liabilities, domestic debt accounted for around two-thirds of total liability in 2003-04 and grew at an annual average growth rate of 16.81 per cent from 1992 to 2003-04. Public account liabilies had the lowest growth rate of 10.79 per cent.

Aggregate fiscal liabilities-GDP ratio peaked during 1991-92 when it reached 65.43 per cent of GDP, the report said, adding the ratio decelerated to an average of 60.72 per cent during eighth plan (1992-97) and further to 59.08 per cent during ninth plan (1997-02).

In the last two years, while the ratio of fiscal liabilities to GDP rose to 62.69 per cent in 2002-03, it came down to 59.87 per cent in 2003-04, close to the long-term trend levels.
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Inflation up at 5.91 per cent
New Delhi: Inflation rose to 5.91 per cent during the week ended April 23, as vegetables, fruits, edible oil, industrial fuel and manufactured products became costlier.

After hardening to 5.64 per cent during the week ended April 16, the wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation rose further despite efforts by the RBI and government to keep prices stable.

Inflation was at 4.32 per cent during the same period last year.

WPI was up by 0.4 per cent to 191.9 points during the week from 191.2 a week ago, mainly due to a rise in prices of primary articles by 0.8 per cent, fuel by 0.2 per cent and manufacturing by 0.2 per cent.

Government revised upwards inflation to 5.06 per cent during the week ended February 26 from the provisional figure of 4.95 per cent while WPI stood corrected at 188.9 points against the provisional level of 188.7 points.
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