document.writeln("

Mid term review: High growth ahead for country
New Delhi: According to the mid-year review of the economy tabled in the Parliament on Friday, the country is heading for another year of high growth, boosted by a rebound in the farm sector. The survey also says that the inflation rate may come in below the estimated 5.0-5.5 per cent as forecast earlier.

The country's economy, Asia's third-largest, grew an annual 8.0 per cent in the July-September quarter, due to strong output in services and manufacturing, prompting analysts to consider raising their full-year growth forecasts.

'The review projects the continuation of the high growth of around 7 percent for the economy in 2005/06, buoyed by the first half overall GDP growth of 8.1 percent,' the survey said.

It said the farm sector was expected to grow at more than 3 per cent, supported by grains output of about 5 per cent because of near-normal southwest monsoon rains.

Agriculture accounts for a fifth of the economy, but wields a disproportionate influence on domestic consumer demand with more than 600 million of India's billion-plus people depending on it for a livelihood.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh has said that growth should reach 10 per cent in two to three years.
Back to News Review index page  

PM says labour reform will create jobs, growth
New Delhi: Making a strong plea for changing the outdated labour laws at the Indian Labour Conference in New Delhi on Friday, prime minister Manmohan Singh said that the country needs to reform its labour laws in order to protect the interests of workers, create jobs and also to enable the country to attract investment for faster economic growth.

He regretted that though successive Indian governments had talked of making labour laws more flexible in order to improve competitiveness and attract more foreign money, but fearing the political cost had failed to follow through on the reform.

The prime minister said, 'We need new laws for new times.'
'Laws which provide safety standards, which cater to the basic needs of workers, which take care of their welfare, which are flexible enough to create rather than destroy jobs, which increase the overall wellbeing of our people.'

Foreign investors regularly cite rigid labour laws, which make it hard to fire workers during economic slumps, as one of the biggest obstacles to doing business in what is today Asia's third-largest economy.

India currently gets less than a tenth of the investment that pours into rival China.
Back to News Review index page  

India, US conduct first working group meeting on ICT
Washington: A State Department statement has said that India and the US have held the first ever meeting of a bilateral working group on information and communication technologies. The group discussed approaches that could be taken to create an investment and regulatory environment in the fast-growing sector.

"The working group discussed developments in the information and telecommunications sectors in both countries," the State Department said in a statement after the two-day meeting, which ended here yesterday.

"It focused on discussion of approaches the governments can take to create an investment and regulatory environment that can maximise the development of the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector," it said.

The meeting was co-chaired by David Goss, State Department's US coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy and M Madhavan Nambiar, additional secretary of the Department of Information Technology.
Back to News Review index page  

Inflation up at 4.54 per cent
New Delhi: India's wholesale price index rose 4.54 per cent on an annual basis in the week ended Nov. 26, up from the previous week's 4.32 per cent, due to higher food and manufactured product prices, according to data released by the government on Friday.

The inflation rate was at 7.30 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year.
Back to News Review index page  

Chidambaram: Inflation to be less than 5 per cent in FY06
New Delhi: The Government said on Friday that it was confident of keeping inflation below 5 per cent even as the weekly wholesale prices rose marginally to 4.54 per cent for the week ended November 26.

"Inflation was expected to be around five per cent," the finance minister, P Chidambaram, said after tabling the mid-year review of the economy in Parliament today.

The review stated: "With appropriate monetary and fiscal measures, it should be possible to contain annual average inflation to below 5-5.5 per cent in 2005-06 (as projected by RBI)."

Despite the rapid rise in global crude prices, the review said:
"Domestic inflation has remained contained at a moderate level and there are no fundamental macro-economic imbalances."

The 52-week average inflation came down to 5.3 per cent till October 1, this year from 6.2 per cent a year ago. Till November 19, the average inflation was further lower at 5 per cent this year from 6.4 per cent a year ago.
Back to News Review index page  

Baijal: Auctioning of spectrum will create problem for 3G services
New Delhi: According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chairman, Pradip Baijal, auctioning of the spectrum for third generation mobile services (3G) would create problems and instead he has suggested issuing separate licenses for such services as an alternative instead.

"If we go in for auction of spectrum it can create more problems than it would solve. We have 2G, FM radio auction experiences which have not been good and moreover the 2G licensee do not have much spectrum for growth," Baijal said on Friday.
Back to News Review index page