Current account deficit at $3.8bn in Q3
Mumbai: The country's current account deficit has fallen to $3.85 billion in the quarter ended December 30, 2005, against $5.44 billion in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal and $5.05 billion in the previous quarter of the current year. The trade deficit for the third quarter of the current fiscal marginally widened to $12.02 billion from $11.73 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year. India's imports stood at $38.429 billion, while exports amounted to $26.4 billion.

Import payments showed a moderate growth of 17 per cent during the quarter, due to a strong base effect since imports had grown by 55.4 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2004-05. Oil import during this period remained steady, though non-oil imports slowed down.
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Japan to give Rs 5,910-cr ODA soft loan for infrastructure
New Delhi: Japan has extended a loan package of 155,458 yen million (approx Rs5,910 crore) to India under its Official Development Assistance (ODA) for 2005-06. The loan is for funding 10 projects, including part-financing the second phase of the Delhi Metro project and the proposed Bangalore metro rail project, besides eight environment and infrastructure projects across the country.

The other projects that qualify for the ODA loan are a water supply and sewerage project in Bangalore, a pumped storage project in Purulia, West Bengal, rural electrification projects in three States, the Vishakapatnam Port Expansion project, the Swan River Integrated Watershed Management project in Himachal Pradesh, a forestry development project in Orissa, the Hussain Sagar Lake and catchment area improvement project in Andhra Pradesh, and a solid waste management improvement project in Kolkata.

The rate of interest for the package would be 1.3 per cent a year for the infrastructure projects and 0.75 per cent for the environment sector projects. The repayment period is over 20 years (after the grace period of 10 years) for the infrastructure projects, except the Rural Electrification Project, and 30 years (after the grace period of 10 years) for the environment and forestry sector projects.

For the Rural Electrification Project, the rate of interest would be 0.75 per cent and the repayment period 10 years (after the grace period of five years).
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External debt falls by $5bn to $119.2bn
New Delhi: India's external debt fell by $5 billion to $119.2 billion at the end of December 2005 against $124.2 billion at the end of the previous quarter ending September 2005. The almost 4 per cent reduction in external debt was mainly on account of a drop in external commercial borrowings and redemption of India Millennium Deposit scheme by the State Bank of India in December.

During the period, total long-term external debt fell by $5.4 billion to $110.26 billion while short term debt increased by $533 million to $8.9 billion till December end.

The external debt to GDP ratio has dropped to 17.3 per cent as of March-end 2005 from 17.8 per cent in the previous year. The proportion of short-term debt in total debt as well as the ratio of short-term debt to foreign current assets rose to 7.5 per cent and 6.8 per cent, respectively, in December-end 2005.

In case of long-term debt, multilateral debt increased by $370 million to $31.79 billion in December as compared to $31.42 billion in the previous quarter.

However, this was offset by a decline in bilateral credits by $322 million, which stood at $15.55 billion.
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Bengal govt offers to buy out TCG in Haldia Petro
Kolkata: The West Bengal government has submitted a proposal to the Company Law Board through the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) to buy out the shares held by The Chatterjee Group (TCG) in Haldia Petrochemicals (HPL) or alternatively it said it was willing to sell the shares it owned in HPL to The Chatterjee Group.

It was also not clear where the cash-strapped state government expected to get the funds from to buy out TCG.

Sources said according to the offer, WBIDC would, on a day designated by the law board, submit before it in a sealed cover its offer price, above the minimum price of Rs28.80 per equity share of HPL. This is the price at which WBIDC would sell all of its shares to The Chatterjee Group.

At its own offer price, WBIDC would offer to buy all the shares of The Chatterjee Group in HPL.
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