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Posco reaches agreement on Orissa steel project
Mumbai: The South Korean steel maker Posco will sign an accord with the state of Orissa on June 22, by way of investing $12 billion on a steel and iron ore project in the state. The agreement with the state would be the biggest foreign direct investment in India, the two parties said Tuesday.

Orissa, which has almost 25 percent of India's iron ore deposits, would allow Posco to export up to 30 percent of the iron ore annually from the 600 million ton mine that the state plans to lease, Jeong Tae Hyun, a general manager at Posco, said by telephone from Seoul.

Orissa in April stalled approval for the project because Posco wanted to export 40 percent of the mined ore. The state wanted to limit ore exports to ensure supplies for Tata Steel, India's second biggest steel maker, and at least 40 other companies that have proposed investments in the state totaling $40 billion.

Posco agreed to import a matching quantity of high-grade ore to improve the quality of locally-produced alloy and prevent a possible ore shortage, Jeong said. Iron ore found in Orissa is high in alumina, which is smelted to make aluminum.

Dubai Aluminium, the world's third-biggest aluminum maker, plans to build a smelter in Orissa, which has half of India's bauxite reserves.

Posco has begun work to secure water supplies for the plant, to be built in Paradip, one of India's 12 big ports. Posco will move 730 households from the plant site to a new location. Construction work will begin in a year's time and production by June 2010, Jeong said.
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Jet Airways signs up for ten Airbus A330s
New Delhi: Indian private carrier Jet Airways is to acquire ten Airbus A330-200s/-300s and has taken options on another ten. Deliveries are due to begin as early as the first quarter of 2007.

Jet Airways, though, will become the first Indian operator of the Airbus A330 even sooner, in May 2006, when it takes delivery of the first of several aircraft leased from ILFC.

Jet Airways is India's largest private carrier, and recently became the first in the country to fly the Airbus A330/A340 family by leasing three Airbus A340-300Es, which are already a great success on Mumbai-London flights, and which will shortly inaugurate services from Delhi to London.

Jet Airways plans to use its Airbus A330s on a mix of domestic, regional and international flights. Each aircraft will seat 226 passengers, with luxurious six-abreast flatbed seating in business, and a comfortable eight-abreast layout in economy.
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Mahindra and ITEC in JV on trucks and buses
Mumbai: Utility vehicle and tractor maker Mahindra & Mahindra is now planning to produce heavy trucks and buses for the Indian and export markets.

Mahindra will enter into a joint venture with International Truck and Engine Corporation (ITEC), the US-based producer of mid-range diesel engines, medium and heavy trucks.

The project cost of the new venture, Mahindra International Pvt Ltd, is pegged at Rs400 crore. In the JV, Mahindra will have 51 per cent stake and ITEC will hold 49 per cent stake.

M&M Vice-Chairman and MD Anand Mahindra said the JV would have the capacity of 50,000 vehicles by 2008 from 15,000 capacity initially.
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Tata Tea to persist with strategy
Mumbai: Tata Tea has said that it will continue with the disposal of tea plantations as it shifts its focus from loss-making commodity activities such as growing tea to processing and branding. The sale or lease of 16 plantations in southern India last year to worker-based groups helped reduce employee costs by a 10th.

Meanwhile, the company revealed its full-year figures, which are in line with market expectations.

Tata Tea's consolidated net profit, which includes the performance of the company's UK affiliate, Tetley Tea, improved 33 per cent to Rs2.15 billion in the year to March, excluding an extraordinary cost of Rs450 million arising from foreign currency transactions. Sales improved five per cent to Rs30.59 billion.

The best performing segment was in India, where Tata Tea has a one-fifth share of the estimated Rs40 billion tea market after Hindustan Lever, a unit of Unilever, the UK-Dutch foods group.

Tata Tea's sales in India climbed 22 per cent in volume and by 15 per cent in value.

Some 85 per cent of worldwide sales comes from branded tea. Overseas, notably in the mature UK market, Tetley Tea fared less well, with a 1.5 per cent slippage in sales to Rs15billion, as competition from new products such as flavoured teas began to shave the share of traditional teas.

This year, Tata Tea hopes to dispose of an additional eight plantations, part of a longer-term strategy to reduce the company's exposure to the more volatile commodity end of the industry.

The 16 plantations sold last year employed about 12,000 workers and ran up losses of about Rs150 million.
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Bharti signs outsourcing deal with Ericsson
Singapore: In a major outsourcing deal, telecom services provider, the Bharti group has signed a contract with Swedish telecom giant Ericsson.

The deal, worth $250 million dollar (about Rs1,075 crore) is for setting up and maintaining GSM cellular network in 3,000 towns across India.

"Ericsson's technology and managed service solutions will enable Bharti to expand into around 3,000 towns and villages in 15 regions," Hans Vestberg, Executive Vice President, Ericsson, said while announcing the contract.

This is part of Bharti's initiative to roll out its network in rural India. Bharti is the only private telecom operator offering services in all 23 circles. This is the second deal between Bharti and Ericsson. Last year, they had signed a mega deal worth $400 million.

Based on Bharti's capacity requirement, Ericsson would provide design, deployment, integration, optimisation and management of Bharti's network in the 15 regions.

These 15 circles are Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, UP (West), Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, UP (East), Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and North-East.

Vestberg said the rollout in the first phase of this ongoing coverage expansion into rural India will start in July 2005.
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QAD and Tata Consultancy Services form strategic partnership
Carpinteria / New York, USA: QAD Inc., a leading provider of enterprise applications for global manufacturers, has announced a global strategic partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) a leading global IT services firm. Together, the two companies will jointly serve global manufacturers, combining their respective strengths to deliver world-class enterprise solutions and a robust IT infrastructure that help customers achieve excellence in their manufacturing operations.

QAD and TCS already have a history of collaboration on design and implementation of systems and support for customers, including Johnson Controls Inc.

As part of this strategic partnership, QAD and TCS will partner to deliver QAD manufacturing solutions; further, the partners will collaborate closely with joint customers on system design and implementation.

In addition to its flagship enterprise software, QAD MFG/PRO, consultants within QAD's Global Services organization provide deep expertise in the six manufacturing sectors the company serves — as well as local business and regulatory requirements — to help customers streamline manufacturing operations from the back office to the supply chain. TCS complements QAD Global Services' capabilities with broad expertise in business
QAD manufacturing solutions provide the flexibility and scalability that manufacturers require to support local plants' operational requirements and allowing for centralization of functions when it makes sense for the customer. TCS provides system design, implementation and global delivery capabilities that — coupled with QAD's focus on manufacturing — enable local and multinational manufacturers to achieve not only their manufacturing objectives, but also their broader IT and business goals, said QAD officials.
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SAB Miller to make $125mn fresh investments in India
Bangalore: Global beer giant SAB Miller Plc has announced fresh investments of $125 million in capital expenditure and marketing initiatives over five years to expand operations and support market leading brands in the country.

SAB Miller, through its local subsidiary, MBL Investments, acquired the Shaw Wallace & Co's residual interest in the domestic brewing joint venture. SAB Miller has 10 breweries across the sub-continent. Its key brands include Hayward's 5000, Royal Challenge Premium Lager, Knock-Out and the international premium brand Castle Lager.

SAB Miller has a 35-per cent share in the Indian beer market, at 88 to 89 million cases annually, making it the second largest domestic brewer after United Breweries Ltd.

SAB Miller is the largest multinational in the Indian brewing industry and has invested close to $400 million towards acquiring assets over the last five years.
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ILD calls: BSNL demands Rs.60 crore more from Reliance
New Delhi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has slapped another Rs60 crore penalty on Reliance Infocomm for allegedly routing international long distance (ILD) calls as local calls.

BSNL had earlier raised a demand of Rs263 crore, of which Reliance has paid up Rs182 crore. With the fresh penalty, the total outstanding amount from Reliance Infocomm now stands at Rs130 crore.

According to data compiled by BSNL, the biggest loser has been the State-owned company's Kolkata circle, where the net outstanding against Reliance has been pegged at Rs90.2 crore. BSNL's Chennai circle has also reported a net outstanding of Rs23.7 crore.

Reliance Infocomm had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging BSNL's claims and the matter is now sub-judice.

Earlier BSNL had even disconnected some of the points of inter-connection with Reliance and had threatened to pull the plug off the company across the country if it did not pay up the ADC.
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Business briefs: Wipro, Samsung, Tata Power, Mirinda, Dr Reddy's
Wipro bags US contract
Wipro BPO has bagged a contract from E-OPS of the US for the latter's offshore paperless mortgage processing services. The Wipro unit will handle the loan processing, including loan application data entry and submission; the follow-up process; the query handling process; the re-submission, closing and notification process for E-OPS customers in the US.

Samsung launches CDMA set
Samsung has launched an advanced CDMA handset, SCH N 380, in India. The 75-gm handset has features like long message service in English (405 characters) and Hindi (135 characters), a large 2000 phone book memory and PC sync. The N380 is being made available through the Reliance India Mobile network.

Tata Power wins environmental award
Tata Power's Jojobera division has won the Golden Peacock Award for Environment Excellence for 2005. The 307.5-megawatt thermal power station is also ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards certified.

Mirinda's Batman Blast
Mirinda has launched a new fruit flavour soft drink, Batman Blast Berry Fusion, to coincide with the release of the movie, Batman Begins, which is being sponsored by Pepsico. The drink is made from a mix of grapes and black currant.

Dr Reddy's wins packaging award
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories has won the `WorldStar 2004' award from the World Packaging Organisation (WPO) for three of its products - Clearz, Docetere and Mintop. The awards are given for excellence in design and the effectiveness of packaging to curb counterfeiting of products. This year, 32 countries participated in the WPO awards. The company has won the WorldStar awards for the third successive year.
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