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Aiyer: India to invest in Romanian refineries
New Delhi: India is looking at investing in Romanian refineries so as to get easy access to the oil market in European Union, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has said.

"We are looking at participation in Romanian refineries which have huge spare capacity to access Central Europe and eventually Western Europe," he said from Bucharest, where he held talks with Romanian Minister for Economy and Commerce Cherif, on cooperation in the energy sector.

Indian oil firms will acquire stake in Romanian refineries either by participating in the privatisation process or form joint ventures with Romanian companies.

Romania has 10 refineries with a combined capacity of 680,000 barrels per day. The Romanian refineries produced 10.9mn of petroleum products in 2003, which was 49 per cent of their installed capacity.

"Romanian companies will explore possibility of investing in Indian refineries to get access to the South Asian, S E Asian, Far East Asian and Gulf and African markets," he said.
The two sides signed four MoUs.
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India, Israel to collaborate in high tech sectors
New Delhi: India and Israel have gone in for a ''unique initiative'' in order to collaborate in areas such as biotechnology, space sciences and nano-technology.

Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said that the two countries have signed an initiative that will involve industry from the two sides for an effective collaboration in these areas. Both countries have committed $1 million each to create a corpus that will be made available for joint industrial projects.

Sibal said that entrepreneurs from both sides would work together to develop products.

Sibal, who was on a visit to Israel from May 28-31, said Israel is ready to put in more. Joint projects will also be encouraged in alternative sources of energy and water technology.
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Hardware exports touch Rs.8,000 crore in 2004-05
New Delhi: Electronic hardware exports from the country are estimated to have touched Rs8,000 crore during 2004-05, according to provisional estimates by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

"Highlights of the year's performance were the accelerated growth in exports of telecom equipment and consumer electronics. The growth rate for 2004-05 works out to 3.90 per cent," D.K. Sareen, Executive Director, ESC, said in a statement here.

The electronic hardware segment consists of consumer electronics, telecom equipment and cables, instruments, electronic components and computer hardware. Of these, electronic components accounted for a lion's share of exports from the country, at 47.5 per cent.

In absolute terms, export of electronic components has increased from Rs3,755 crore in 2003-04 to Rs3,800 crore in 2004-05, registering a marginal growth of 1.20 per cent.

Significantly, exports of consumer electronics have registered a growth of 39.3 per cent in 2004-05 as compared to the previous year. Consumer electronics exports constitute roughly 14 per cent of the total electronics hardware exports from the country.
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Gartner report: IT services domestic market to grow to $5.3bn by 2009
Mumbai: According to a Gartner report, the IT services market in the country are set to grow to $5.3 billion by 2009, as more and more small and medium-size enterprises sign IT services and BPO deals. The growth in the economy will also add to the momentum.

"Small and medium-sized IT companies signing BPO deals is expected to drive the next phase of growth in the Indian IT services market," said Ravindra Datar, principal analyst, Asia-Pacific for IT services and BPO at Gartner.

Gartner also reported that the Indian IT services market has recorded a 26.7 per cent growth for the Asia-Pacific region in 2004-05.

It has also forecast a compounded annual growth rate of 8.9 per cent between 2004 and 2009 for the Asia-Pacific IT services business, outpacing the global growth of 6.1 per cent.

While emerging markets like India and China will spearhead the growth in the region for the next few years, professional services, led by development and integration, IT management and consulting, will be the region's strongest performing business, the report added.

Gartner said though India has established itself as a leading destination for offshore IT and BPO services in the last 10 years, the domestic market has started picking up only recently.
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Govt. seeks India Inc.'s views on independent directors issue
New Delhi: The government has invited the industry's views on the number and eligibility criteria of independent directors required by listed companies and assured them that the final view will be in the interest of the industry, minority shareholders and the nation.

Company affairs minister Prem Chand Gupta asked the industry at a conference organised by the Confederation of the Indian Industry (CII), to tell the government what should be the minimum strength of independent directors a listed company should have.

CII's national corporate governance council chairman Adi Godrej said the industry body is already working on creating a database of independent directors.

The ministry has also begun a process to reform the liquidation process of sick companies. "The average realisation of assets after liquidation is 12.5% in India, compared with the 26% in South Africa and 96% in Japan. It also takes at least 15 years to 20 years to complete the proceedings here. Our target is to reduce it to a maximum of three years", Gupta said.

The ministry is also keen to reduce litigation with respect to minor offences under the company law where the possible penalty is also very low.

There are at least three crore cases pending in various courts in the country. A committee set up to find ways to reduce this burden, is expected to submit its report next month.
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