Government to formulate new policy on iron ore export
Jamshedpur: India will soon formulate a policy on export of iron-ore, but will not impose a blanket ban as demanded by the domestic steel industry.

The Union Minister of State for Steel, Akhilesh Das said a policy would be framed soon to keep export of the raw material to the bare minimum. He denied any shortage of iron-ore on account of exports.

Multinational steel giants including South Korea's Posco and Mittal Steel had sought permission to export iron ore from the country, but domestic players including Tata Steel are against allowing ore exports.
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India, China boost Africa's growth, says World Bank
Beijing: A new World Bank study has found that increasing trade and investment from Asian countries, especially India and China, is fuelling Africa's economic growth. The study, "Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier," said 27 per cent of African exports are sold in Asia, up from 14 per cent in 2000 or three times the amount in 1990.

Europe, Africa's leading trade partner since the early Independence days, has lost ground with a 50 per cent fall between 2000 and 2005 in the share of African exports to European Union members, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the study.

The study finds that existing Chinese and Indian investment in Africa is concentrated on raw materials, notably in the mining and oil sectors. The study said the two Asian countries "are fast diversifying outside the natural resources sector into the apparel, food processing, retail, fisheries, commercial real estate, labour-intensive light manufacturing and the services sector in ways that could help Africa move away from over-reliance on a few export commodities which has left the continent so vulnerable to economic shocks."
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Edible oil imports down 14 pc in 2005-06
Kolkata: Edible oil imports, which rose to 5 million tonnes (mt) in 2004-05 (November-October), fell 14 pc to 4.42 mt in 2005-06. The decline in imports is primarily attributed to domestic oilseeds production, which touched 27.7 mt in 2005-06. Oilseeds availability from domestic sources improved in the year with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) releasing another 2 mt of mustard seeds from old stocks.

In the total import basket for 2005-06, import of refined oils reduced to 0.13 mt from 0.45 mt in the previous year. With the government raising the cap on carotenoid content at 500 particle per milligram (ppm) on crude palmolein, importers refrained from buying it from international markets. As a result, its imports in the year reduced to just 55,804 tonnes from the 2004-05 level of 1,86,000 tonnes.

With this, total imports of palm-based oils fell to 0.25 mt in 2005-06 from 0.30 mt last year, though crude palm oil imports maintained at around 0.23 mt in the year. Driven by a firm trend in crude soya oil prices in international markets, importers during the year purchased 0.1 mt of crude sunflower oil out of the tariff-related quota of 0.15 mt, for which they had to pay 45 pc import duty against the normal duty of 78.2 pc. In the year, the country imported 0.17 mt of crude soya oil as against 0.20 mt in 2004-05.

However, vanaspati imports into India rose by 0.1 mt to 0.3 mt in 2005-06 compared to 0.2 mt in the previous year.
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