Kamal Nath: New SEZ act in a week to ten days from now
Kolkata: The Centre will announce the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act in the next week or so, Union commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath said here Wednesday at the CII Partnership Summit.

It may be mentioned that the Union commerce ministry has already received proposals for around 70 SEZs, totalling investments of Rs10,000 crore. About 25 SEZs are currently operational in the country.

Kamal Nath said that the government had taken some time in framing the rules as it wanted to ensure that the rules were "enabling and not disabling". "There has been an encouraging response from the corporate sector regarding investment in SEZs, particularly in the areas of IT and automobile components," Nath said.

About FDI in retail, Kamal Nath said the issue before the government was not whether FDI was good for the retail sector or not, but whether big retailers would devour small ones. He said that the government was working on a suitable model for attracting foreign investment in retail.
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Exports mark a 23.5 pc growth during April-Oct.'05
New Delhi: Traditional export items, agriculture and allied products, gems and jewellery, chemicals and related products and engineering goods, have accounted for close to 58 per cent of the country's total exports during the first seven months of the 2005-06 fiscal.

Data, based on provisional figures of the Directorate-General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics (DGCI&S), Kolkata, show that agriculture and allied products with a weight of 7.03 per cent in total exports notched up a robust 18.17 per cent growth during April-October 2005 at US$1,145.39mn, against US$973.18mn in the corresponding months of 2004.

Gems and jewellery (weight 17.88 per cent) posted a growth of 26.90 per cent at US$9,347.51mn during April-October 2005 as against US$7,366.03mn in the corresponding months of 2004. Chemicals and related products (14.66 per cent) logged a 17.79 per cent growth at US$7,663.53mn (US$6,506.17mn).

Engineering goods with a weight of 18.06 per cent in total exports performed well by clocking up a growth of 25.47 per cent at US$9,441.81mn (US$7,525.00mn).

Textiles (weight 14.25 per cent), which had been under-performing in the last couple of years, appeared to have reversed its slide and registered a modest 6.72 per cent growth during the period under review at US$7,448.79mn (US$6,979.97mn).

Interestingly, the country's export of petroleum products accounted for a respectable share of 11.05 in aggregate exports, registered an impressive 57.71 per cent growth at US$5,779.25mn (US$3,664.49mn).

Destination-wise, India's exports to Asia and Oceania, which absorb as much as 47.03 per cent of the country's exports, showed a growth of 26.08 per cent at US$24,587.59mn during the period under review, against US$19,501.24mn in the corresponding months of 2004. Exports to West Europe, which takes as much as 23.07 per cent of the exports, showed a growth of 24.66 per cent at US$12,533.21mn (US$10,054.26mn).

While exports to the Americas (21.03 per cent) registered a growth of 18.05 per cent at US$10,997.02mn (US$9,315.81mn), India's exports to Latin American countries, despite accounting for a meagre 3.07 per cent in overall exports, recorded a 37.08 per cent growth at US$1,605.62mn (US$1,171.32mn).

Among the top 15 countries for exports, Singapore logged the highest growth of 68 per cent during the period under discussion, followed by Sri Lanka at 54 per cent, the Netherlands at 53 per cent, and South Africa at 49 per cent and China at 49 per cent.

On the import front, bulk imports, which account for close to 44 per cent in the country's total imports, registered a hefty growth of 41 per cent at US$33,524.53mn (US$23,816.79mn). This was followed by import of petroleum crude and products, which, with a share of 31.82 per cent in aggregate imports, recorded a growth of 41.41 per cent at US$24,392.16mn (US$17,249.33mn).

There was a big jump in machinery imports, which registered a 47 per cent growth at US$7,360.13mn (US$5,021.4mn). On the whole, imports during the period April-October 2005 at US$76,647.86mn was 34.33 per cent higher than the level of imports at US$57,060.12mn in the corresponding period of 2004.

Among the top 15 countries for India's imports, the highest growth was shown by Germany at 48 per cent, followed by China at 47 per cent, Switzerland and Hong Kong at 43 per cent each and South Africa and the United Arab Emirates at 40 per cent each.
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Fitch: Indian current account deficit to grow
Mumbai: Fitch Ratings on Tuesday forecast a current account deficit for the country at 1.6 per cent of the GDP, for the period 2005-06, and also said that higher growth is going to be increasingly dependent on external financing in the absence of fiscal correction.

The rating agency noted that net capital inflows are running at three per cent of the GDP.

The agency however remarks that with over US$140bn of international reserves, India was probably better placed than ever before to ride out external shocks, such as the rise in oil prices.

Fitch also said that India's weak public finances are due to populist expenditure commitments born out of coalition politics and a narrow tax base, which is insufficiently responsive to the changing structure of the economy. It has warned that whenever fiscal tightening has occurred, it has come at the expense of public investment, which was far from ideal from the perspective of supply-side performance.
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AAI to raise Rs.5,000-cr to modernise non-metro airports
Mumbai: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is planning to raise over Rs5,000 crore from the markets towards modernisation and upgrade of 35 non-metro airports. The ministry of civil aviation has already appointed a credit rating agency and financial advisor-cum-lead arranger for raising capital for the project.

"AAI is planning to raise Rs5,000 crore to Rs6,000 crore for funding the modernisation programme of 35 non-metro airports of the country. AAI will float either bond or any other debt instrument soon," Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel said.

He said that Delhi-based A K Capital Services has been appointed as financial advisor and lead arranger for the finalising the options and other details of proposed debt funding.

The minister said the modernisation of 35 non-metro airports would be done in a phased manner.

AAI authorities said that they had appointed Crisil as the credit rating agency while UTI Bank, A K Capital Services, ICICI Securities and Allianz Securities have been appointed as arrangers for marketing and placement of bonds.
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Global participation in construction of new Kolkata airport
Kolkata: The West Bengal government is likely to float a global tender for preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) in February for a second airport at Kolkata. The new airport is to be located close to the existing airport at Dumdum.

Consulting Engineers Services (CES) is now preparing the pre-feasibility study for the greenfield airport, and its report is likely to be completed by February.

The chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, told members of CII at an interactive session that the state government has decided to go for a greenfield airport close to Kolkata through private public partnership or entirely through private investment. "We need a new airport here. The preliminary study is already on," he said.

The chief minister also invited the infrastructure companies of Singapore and Dubai to participate in the airport project. The chief minister also invited these companies to invest in the proposed health city near the airport. KMDA was now preparing the DPR for the health city project.
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