A feel-good factor on the back of a good monsoon with both the government and the industry upbeat about prospects of over 7 per cent growth along with over $100 billion foreign exchange reserves and a surging sensex highlighted an economy on the rise during the year 2003.A significant aspect of reforms this year has been financial sector reforms. The public-sector banks have achieved a record 50 per cent net profit this year and were confident of maintaining the tempo in the coming year as well. The balance sheets of several banks have cleaned up through reforms and all three weak banks Indian Bank, United Commercial Bank and United Bank have turned the corner. The passage of securitisation ordinance has facilitated the banks and financial institutions to deal with huge non-performing assets, which has now started reducing.

The Year 2003 was a watershed year as it brought cheers to Indian banks for recording an unprecedented 50 per cent growth and emerging strongest among asian peers, but falling deposit rates brought tears to the common man. With reforms starting to yield fruits and boom in retail and housing segments, banks reduced their NPAs to only 4.5 per cent and increased profitability. At least six banks - Corporation Bank, HDFC Bank, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, State Bank of Patiala, Andhra Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce - emerged amongst top 10 "strongest" banks of Asia, while big brothers like Bank of India, PNB and Canara Bank improved their overall ranking.

Opening of the skies to foreign and private domestic airlines and liberalisation of the entire aviation sector in the country will mark the new year, as the government worked through 2003 to unveil a revolutionary Civil Aviation Policy next month to enhance competition and make flying easier and cheaper. These major initiatives were watershed developments in India's aviation history.

After two difficult years, the Indian IT industry found its growth momentum in 2003 and successfully faced backlash against outsourcing. As the industry found its feet and went ahead with acquisitions abroad, the two biggest players - Wipro and Infosys Technologies - prepared to join the billion dollar club. India's biggest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced during the year that its 12-month revenues crossed $1 billion. Infosys Technologies and Wipro are expected to clock revenues of $1 billion a year by the end of 2003-04.

Despite controversy over disinvestment in oil PSUs, the reform process in the petroleum sector accelerated during 2003 following a series of fresh discoveries under the new exploration licensing policy regime, expansion of oil equity base by ONGC Videsh Ltd and the announcement of extension of marketing network to the private sector retail outlets. The number of LPG consumer in the country crossed 75 million and now stands second after the China. Nearly 40 per cent population is covered through LPG and gas connection available across the counter in urban and semi-urban areas.

From penury to plenty, the story of a build-up of $100 billion foreign exchange reserves is indeed heartening, offering fresh opportunities. Reserves have soared since then to a historic high, a symbol of both domestic economic health and international confidence in the country. The 89.5 per cent increase in bellwether 30 stock-sensitive index since late April when the rally began, making India the second best emerging market this year, has triggered a stampede by foreign fund managers who have pumped in $7 billion into India's stock markets. A reason for the steady inflow of money from NRIs is that they are looking for a safe haven, as there is an atmosphere of uncertainty due to "excessive US interference in several countries such as Iraq, Libya and Iran", says Prof. J D Agarwal, director of the Delhi based Institute of Finance.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, December 31, 2003

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New Delhi, December 28: After raising his share in the domestic pharmaceutical market from 3.4 per cent to 4.4 per cent with the acquisition of in Sarabhai Piramal Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd. Nicholas Piramal India Ltd. chairman Ajay Piramal now has his sights trained on the top spot. "We are now aiming to become the largest player in the market," Piramal told Business Standard, though he refused to give a timeframe within which he wants to achieve his objective. At the moment, Piramal is third in the pecking order after market leader Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) which has a 5.7 per cent share and Ranbaxy with a 4.7 per cent share.

Courtesy: The Statesman, December 29, 2003

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Exports of India-made vehicles soared by 55.8 per cent during the first eight months of this fiscal as cars, commercial vehicles and two-wheelers continued to charm overseas buyers. A total of 2.93 lakh vehicles were shipped during April- November 2003 over 1.88 lakh units in the same period last year, data compiled by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed. Car exports surged by 69 per cent to 72,535 units with the largest exporter, Maruti Udyog posting a 72.8 per cent growth to 30,749 units. Maruti's nearest rival Hyundai Motor India, which ships compact car 'Santro' to Europe as 'Atos Prime', registered a massive 329.7 per cent rise to 22,207 units. Tata Motors, recently inked a deal with MG Rover of the UK to export compact car 'Indica', climbed 221 per cent to 3,393 units.

Exports of commercial vehicles grew by 25.2 per cent to 9,418 units. While exports of Medium and Heavy (M&H) vehicles went up by 26.5 per cent to 4,286 units, that of Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) jumped 24.2 per cent to 5,132 units. M&H trucks clocked a 16.2 per cent rise to 2,087 vehicles and M&H bus exports surged by 38.1 per cent to 2,199 units.

Exports of light trucks grew by 16.6 per cent to 4,101 units while light buses surged by 67 per cent to 1,031 units. Two-wheeler exports jumped 50 per cent to 1.63 lakh units as motorcycle and step-thrus clocked a 50 per cent rise at 1.17 lakh units. Beating the downtrend in the domestic market, exports of scooter and scooterettes soared 89.2 per cent to 31,045 units. Moped exports also grew by a modest 4.82 per cent to 14,982 units. Motorcycle exports of Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto rose by 76 and 59 per cent to 23,190 and 49,979 units respectively. TVS Motor posted a 220.4 per cent rise to 13,854 units but that of Yamaha Motor fell by 4.41 per cent 26,332 units. Scooter exports of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter climbed over three-fold to 18,303 units but Bajaj Auto exported 26 scooters less at 375 units.

Kinetic Engineering and LML posted 68.2 and 16 per cent growth to 730 and 5,404 scooters respectively. Moped exports grew as Majestic Auto posted a 10 per cent jump to 12,128 units. Utility vehicles exports went up by 183.3 per cent to 2,077 units, with Tata Motors clocking a 365.5 per cent rise at 1,499 units. Exports of multi-purpose vehicles grew by 32.4 per cent to 523 units, helped by a 36.6 per cent growth by Maruti which exported by 472 units. In the three-wheeler segment, exports jumped 63.4 per cent to 46,074 units. While passenger carrier exports increased 63.7 per cent to 45,524 units, that of goods carriers surged 41.3 per cent to 550 units.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 29, 2003

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New Delhi: A good monsoon has put the Indian economy on track to move up a gear into the developing world's fast lane alongside China with growth of 7percent now possible as reforms bring their reward. This could make India a much more favoured foreign investment destination, especially if the government can push ahead further peace initiatives with arch-rival Pakistan and build on its improved ties with Beijing. Industrial output growth of 5.5 to 6.0 percent, foreign exchange reserves of 96 billion dollars and a benign inflation rate of around 4.0 percent have combined to put the country on the verge "of explosive growth," as Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said recently. "The fundamentals of the Indian economy are such that one can declare that the fundamentals have not been better in the last 52 years," Singh said in November, pledging to speed up economic reform, including privatisation of state firms, and the revamping of the banking and insurance sectors. For its part, the Asian Development Bank sees India growing at around 7.0 percent in the next few years as the economy, long bogged down by a strong corporatist tradition and a stifling bureaucracy, shrugs off these shackles. "India's underlying trend growth rate has accelerated to almost six percent," ADB India's chief economist Sudipto Mundle said last week. "We are about to start on an up trend in the business cycle and in the next few years will quite likely have 7.0 to 8.0 percent economic growth," he said. For the year to March 2004, the country will grow around 6.7 percent, slipping to 6.3 to 6.4 percent in the following year due to a likely slowdown in the agricultural sector, which accounts up a quarter of India's gross domestic product (GDP). After that, the economy should pick up to growth rates of 7.0 to 8.0 percent, driven by the services sector, which now accounts for over half of India's GDP as compared to 27.9 percent around 50 years ago. The fast-growing components of this sector include trade, tourism, transport, communications, and financial and business services. The ADB also said that India is set to get a huge filip from greater integration with the ASEAN nations of Southeast Asia as well as burgeoning trade with China, which is driving intra-regional trade. Soumitra Chowdhury, chief economic advisor at the Industrial Credit Rating Agency, said that but for the recent drought, the economy would have turned around last year after a prolonged period of slow growth. Next year, growth is likely to be slower as it would be too much to hope for successive bumper crops based on good monsoon weather. At the same time, the government may be freer spending and populist in view of general elections due by October and key reforms such as cutting down the level of farm and electricity subsidies could be ignored for the time being.

"The government has yet to address important issues such as fiscal and labour reforms," he added. B.B. Bhattacharya, professor at Delhi University's Institute of Economic Growth, said he is concerned the government may ignore long-term development issues such as education and health in order to continue subsidies. "A worrying thing also is that industry has not responded to many of the reform measures announced by the government because of their own structural problems," he said. "Industry has to change if they want to improve their global competitiveness." At the same time, Bhattacharya said the good news is Indian industry is discovering global stars in new fields such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, entertainment and the IT industry.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 29, 2003

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In its move to make India a strategic business development hub for Asia, US based Convergelabs is set to ramp up its Gurgaon based R&D centre by raising the number of software engineers to 120 from 70 at present. Convergelabs, a VC funded company is headquartered in Silicon Velley, California, specialises in building innovative solutions to the members of wireless ecosystems. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporations has used Convergelabs's technology for its indoor mobile phone coverage. The technology developed by Convergelabs integrates the equipment for all mobile phone service providers in Delhi enabling superior voice and data quality without congestion. Worldwide, the company has 20 customers spread across US, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, China and US, he said.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 28, 2003

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Cobra Carbide, the $15 million American manufacturer of solid carbide cutting tools, plans to shift its manufacturing base from US to India. "With the relocation, the company plans to take advantage of 45 to 50 per cent cost saving mainly on labour and proximity to the markets of Asia Pacific, Europe and US," said Rakesh Aghi, president and CEO, Cobra Carbide told ET. The company has already invested Rs 10 crore in setting up full-fledged facility in Bangalore and efforts are on to pump in an additional Rs 10 crore in 2004 on capital equipment, he added. Cobra Carbide is a major supplier of carbide tools in the US market mainly to aerospace, defence and auto sectors. Major customers are Boeing, Raytheon, General Motors, Chevrolet, General electric and Rolls Royce.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 28, 2003

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Expanding its horizon in the Asia Pacific region, Titan Industries announced its entry into the Philippines. The decision to foray into Philippines was prompted by Titan's success in neighbouring countries like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and also by the fact that the Philippines watch industry was developed and offered the right platform for Titan products. Titan watches are now available in about 70 stores across the Philippines and the company plans to expand the distribution network to 150 outlets covering the watch stores, departmental stores and kiosks in big shopping malls. An exclusive Titan store to showcase the entire range of watches is also part of the future plans.

Courtesy: The Hindu, December 28, 2003

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New Delhi: The industrial recovery in India was sustainable and industrial production was expected to grow at 6.4 per cent in 2003-04 and 8.6 per cent in the next fiscal, according to estimates made by the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG). An analysis on industrial recovery made by IEG points out that the sustained growth would be mainly due to a predicted 9 per cent growth in the agriculture sector in the current fiscal. Moreover, the recent trend showing that there was a strong upward movement in non-food credit, would also contribute to industrial sector recovery. Further assuming that agriculture grew at 9 per cent this year and by trend 3 percent growth next year, it could be predicted that industrial sector growth would be 6.4 per cent in the current fiscal and 8.6 per cent in the next fiscal.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, December 27, 2003

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India's foreign exchange reserves crossed the $ 100 billion dollars mark this past week. It has been a long haul from the $ 1.2 billion India had in 1991, scraping the bottom of the barrel and being forced to pledge even its meagre gold reserves. This is also a lesson to future policy makers that an open economy has myriad advantages. Hopefully it will silence the critics of reforms. India's GDP has grown at an average of around six per cent in the past decade, almost twice the rate of most developed countries. Our inflation is well under control. The structure of our economy has undergone a change in the past few years.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, December 26, 2003

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Market capitalisation of state exploration firm Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has exceeded the total market capitalisation of Karachi Stock Exchange. ONGC's market capitalisation of over Rs 104,356 crore ($21.74 billion), at Wednesday's scrip closing price of Rs 731.85, is larger than the nearly $20 billion market capitalisation of Karachi Stock Exchange, industry sources said. From Rs 138.55 a share on May 25, 2001, when Raha took over as chairman and managing director, ONGC scrip touched an all-time high of Rs 767 on December 22. Since then ONGC has left the Sensex heavy-weights like Reliance Industries (m-cap of Rs 68,534 crore), Indian Oil Corp (m-cap of Rs 50,259 crore) and HLL (m-cap of Rs 41,162 crore) way behind. The feat of ONGC crossing the Rs 1 lakh crore (trillion) mark in market capitalisation, has placed the firm in a selected list of companies. During the tech boom, the market cap of IT power-houses Infosys and Wipro had crossed this extraordinary milestone. ONGC is today among the top 15 energy majors in the world, based on current market capitalisation. In fact, among the global integrated oil and gas majors, ONGC, which m-cap of $22 billion, ranks next only to ExxonMobil ($200 billion), Royal Dutch/Shell ($100 billion) and Chevron Texaco ($80 billion) in the world.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 26, 2003

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State-owned NTPC, the biggest power generation company in the country, is in advanced stages of talks for two major projects valued at over $1,850 million in West Asia as part of its plan to emerge as a multinational power utility. According to chairman C P Jain, the first project is in Saudi Arabia and envisages construction of one 700 mw crude oil-fired power plant and a water desalination plant with a capacity to process 175 million gallons a day. The project is estimated to cost $1,400 million and is being promoted by Water and Electricity Corporation of Saudi Arabia.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 26, 2003

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Amid all the buzz of top management rejig, Ranbaxy Laboratories has bagged the first approval from the US FDA to market the chewable anti-infective Cefaclor tablets. The generic drug will be marketed in the US through an alliance with Capellon Pharmaceuticals, which is going to provide sales support. Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals (RPI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Ranbaxy, will market it under the brand name Raniclor in the US market. Incidentally, FDA has determined Ranbaxy formulations to be the bioequivalent and with the same therapeutic effect as the reference listed drug Ceclor liquid of Eli Lilly. The Indian formulation is expected to hit the US markets by end of February, 2004.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 25, 2003

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India has recorded the fastest growth in mobile telephony in the world with as many as 13 lakh cellular additions every month, Minister for Communications and IT Arun Shourie said today. He also informed the members that India has earned $13 billion this year through software exports. Shourie said the anomalies in the existing licensing system which had been restricting fair competition in mobile arena had been removed with introduction of unified licensing regime. Talks were on with Defence Ministry for widening bandwidth for smooth and easier access. Once the Defence Ministry releases spectrum, the Department of Telecom would have adequate bandwidth to release it to the telecom operators, he added.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 24, 2003

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India's much acclaimed information technology (IT) skills, now have a ranking to back them. India's IT skills are rated among the best and most competitive across major economies. In fact, India's overall skilled labour is among the top ten countries in the world. This is a huge achievement for the country, considering that India has among the lowest spending on education and the lowest percentage of its total workforce is employed in services, the biggest employer of skilled labour, in comparison to the other big countries. India's index for IT skills availability stands at 8.72 (on a scale of one to ten), second only to USA, which is a mere 0.05 point higher than India's index, where availability implies not only the total number of IT personnel but also their accessibility, attractiveness and suitability. On the other hand, India's index is at least one point higher than most of the other developed western countries as well as the South East Asian countries. It compares exceptionally favourably to China, whose index is less than half of India's index and ranks 17 in IT skills' availability. Even India's overall availability of skilled labour index at 7.57 is enviable, with the sixth rank in the world, behind Philippines, Singapore, USA, Australia and Japan. Although there is a difference of five positions between India and Philippines', India's actual index is only a 0.68 point lesser than Philippines, which stands at 8.25.

With such a strong global position, its no wonder that India is the IT hub of the world and is increasingly acquiring the mantle for the services sector as a whole as well. Logically, higher the availability of skilled labour, greater the likelihood of international companies recruiting locally for their Indian operations. Also, there is greater probability of a multinational company choosing India to set up its business. This is also a considerable achievement since India has relatively low public expenditure on education. India's spending on education is less than 4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the country's total income over one financial year. In comparison, the US spends 7.5% of its GDP on education, and the developed western countries as well as south east Asian countries have far higher spends on education. It is evident that India's skilled labour is far more competitive than the other economies, which in fact forms the crux of the labour index, as brought out in the World Competitiveness Yearbook, brought out by International Institute of Management Development (IMD), Europe's leading management institute. Looking ahead, there doesn't seem to be too much of a threat to India's relative competitiveness either. The country churns out as many as 75,000 IT graduates every year and the course still remains a favourite. Given that the world is yet to fully recover from depression, cost cutting is still big on multinationals' agenda, which further ensures that India will not only retain its position but further enhance it.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 24, 2003

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Brazil may import a copy of an AIDS drug produced by Roche Holding AG in what could be its first step toward breaking the patent on the Swiss company's product, a top Brazilian health official said on Tuesday. Brazil is considering importing an Indian company's copy of Roche's Nelfinavir drug, which would give the South American country cheaper access to the product and the formula to the drug. Brazil's Health Ministry calculates it could save $5 million in 2004 if it takes the Indian company's drug. It is weighing up the "costs and benefits" of such a move before a decision around Jan. 12, the official said. The Indian company, which the official did not name, has offered its Nelfinavir copy at a 20 per cent discount to Roche's current offer, the official said.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 24, 2003

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The export of auto components is expected to cross the $1 billion mark this financial year from $800 million in 2002-03, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday. "The export of auto components from India was to the tune of 800 million US dollars during 2002-03. This is likely to cross the one billion dollar mark in financial year 2003-04," Minister of State for Heavy Industries Santosh Kumar Gangwar said. The minister said GM has set up an extensive research and development facility in India and Suzuki Motor Corp of Japan has announced making India a hub for R&D on small cars.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 23, 2003

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Sundram Fasteners, through its 100% UK subsidiary, Cramlington Precision forge (CPFL), has acquired the precision forgings business of Dana Spicer Europe. The deal was finalised on December 19 for £1.5m (Rs 10.5 crore). With this, SFL has gained a major foothold in Europe, one of the largest auto markets in the world. SFL chairman and MD, Suresh Krishna, said in Chennai on Monday, "The acquisition is part of our strategy to globalise our business and gain access to new markets. We want to have beach heads in different markets to move forward." SFL already has a strong presence in the US, with a host of customers including GM, Daimler Chrysler, Cummins and Deere. SFL is also set to commission, by April-May '04, a $5m greenfield venture in China for producing high tensile fasteners. Plus, it has a presence in Malaysia through TVS Autolec (being merged with SFL), which has a subsidiary for supplying water and oil pumps to Proton.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 23, 2003

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From a low of $1.2 billion in July 1991, India's foreign exchange reserves crossed the historic high of $100 billion on Friday. The reserves, including gold and Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund, stood at $110.48 billion as of December 19, 2003. Reacting to the development, the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, said in a statement today that "I am glad to share that this is a historic high, such a level of reserves never having reached earlier by the country. It may be recalled that the level of our foreign exchange reserves had fallen to a low of less than $1 billion in December 1990,'' he said. In July 1991, with only $1.2 billion in the kitty minus the gold reserves which had to be pledged abroad, the then Narasimha Rao Government went to the International Monetary Fund for a loan of $2.6 billion which came along with prescriptions for economic reforms. Since then, the reserves had gradually risen, but the flow turned into a torrent in the last one year. The crossing of the $100 billion mark has been despite the prepayment of $5 billion official foreign debt in 2003 calendar year, payment of $5.5 billion on account of redemption of Resurgent India Bonds raised in the wake of sanctions after the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests and contributing $498 million this year to the IMF for the Financial Transactions Plan.

Courtesy: The Hindu, December 21, 2003

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Electronic hardware exports from India touched Rs 5,600 crore in '02-03, 43% of which comprised electronic components, worth Rs 2,400 crore. The EU emerged as the largest importer of Indian electronic hardware products, with exports to this region touching Rs 1,468 crore, or 26% of the total exports. Consumer electronics was also in demand, clocking an export turnover of Rs 750 crore - roughly 13 % of the total electronic hardware export. Computer hardware constituted 9% of the exports, while telecom equipment made up for 8%.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 22, 2003

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In a bid to transform itself into a multi-national company, state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation said on Friday it plans to enter the European market. NTPC has been roped in by a foreign investor to bid for an operations and maintenance contract for a thermal power plant in England. The O&M contract involves a 430 MW power station owned by Carron Energy. "We have been invited by an investor who is interested in taking over a power project in England for acting as their O&M contractor," Chairman and Managing Director C P Jain said here. NTPC is in the fray for Shoiba integrated project, 90 km from the city of Jeddah. It has put up a bid for another project in the neighbouring country of Oman.

Courtesy: The Times of India, December 19, 2003

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It is not only the IT jobs that are moving to India, the manufacturing sector is also following on the footsteps of the services sector and setting up bases in India. It is the lure of cutting costs that are bringing these companies to India. Prominent among these are global television major Toshiba and the UK-based JCB, a construction equipment major. Both the companies are setting up manufacturing base in India in the next 18 months. Toshiba, which specialises in advanced electronics, will soon introduce new models in India where it started operations two years ago. JCB, which is one of the finest engineering companies in Europe, too is planning to move base to India and offer local support via a 24 hour parts back-up facility and complete after-sales care.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 19, 2003

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Southern Indian dairies are beginning to go global. The Tamil Nadu Co-operative Milk Producers Federation (which owns the Aavin brand), and India's largest private sector dairy company, the Tamil Nadu-based Hatsun Agro Products, have chalked out plans to enter Sri Lanka. The Karnataka Milk Federation has in the last six months begun exporting badam powder to Sharjah and Singapore, and skimmed milk powder to Nepal. Aavin will export milk in tetrapacks and tetrafino packs, through S.K. Hazari, who has been appointed the agent for Sri Lanka. Plans are also afoot to export ghee in plastic jars. Hatsun is planning to set up a dairy in Sri Lanka. If Aavin's Sri Lankan experiment succeeds, it plans to enter South East Asian markets. Karnataka Milk Federation plans to get into export markets in a much bigger way once its 'clean milk production programme' is complete. Hatsun is also setting up an ice cream making unit in Seychelles. "By March 2004, the first overseas state-of-the-art ice cream plant would commence operations in Seychelles.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 19, 2003

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India, the world's third-largest cotton producer, has signed deals to export more than 400,000 bales this year, compared to normal yearly exports of 100,000 bales, traders said on Wednesday. The country is likely to ship 700,000 to 1m bales (one bale equals 170 kg) of cotton during the current year to September '04. India is well placed to export cotton to neighbouring countries because of freight advantages and lower domestic prices compared with global prices. China also bought Indian cotton this year, though the volume may not be very big. The country has also struck deals to export cotton to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand. India has become a net exporter of cotton this year because of soft prices following a surge in output to more than 16.5m bales in '03-04 from 13.6m bales the previous year, traders said. Prices of Shankar variety cotton, delivered at mills, were now about Rs 23,500 ($516) a candy of 356 kg, compared with Rs 28,000 quoted for imported cotton of similar quality, traders said. India usually imports about 2m bales, mainly from US and Egypt, and exports some 100,000 bales to Bangladesh. In '96-97, it exported about 1m bales of cotton. No imports have taken place this year.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 19, 2003

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Organised food retailing in India is all set to touch a figure of Rs 1,00,000 crore or $22 billion in the next two years, according to the Union minister for state for food processing N T Shanmugam. The minister said that the entire retail market is growing at the rate of 20% per annum. He also said that India has the largest livestock population in the world, is the second largest producer of food in the world, second largest producer of fruit and vegetable in the world, fifth largest producer of eggs and the sixth largest producer of fish in the world. He said that India's food retailing is valued at Rs 4,00,000 crore out of which a major portion is handled by unorganised retailers and the organised sector constitutes a mere Rs 20,000 crore segment which is expected to jump in the next couple of years.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 19, 2003

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Infosys, to quote chairman and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy, "has fallen in love" with an Aussie company. Hence, the country's leading listed software services exporter forked out $22.9m to acquire Expert Information Services, a medium-sized Australian provider of IT services. This acquisition marks a first for Infosys, which has so far been regarded as rather conservative in making acquisitions compared with rivals like Wipro.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 18, 2003

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With the advent of new technologies in cath labs, cardiologists can now derive the advantage of diagnosing a possible heart attack. The flat panel detector cath lab acquired by Yashoda Hospitals from Siemens of Germany helps cardiologists accurately decide the stent required based on the fine vessel detail, improve the diagnosis and quality of examination. Yashoda Hospitals has become the first corporate hospital in South India to be equipped with a flat panel new generation Siemens cath lab. The new equipment was procured at a cost of Rs 3.5 crore, almost double the cost of a conventional cath lab.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 16, 2003

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India's car and two-wheeler exports doubled during the last financial year. India shipped cars worth Rs 897.11 crore in 2002-03 as compared to Rs 418.28 crore during 2001-02, a growth of 114.47 per cent, an official press release said here today, citing the data made available by DGCI&S, Kolkata. Two-wheeler exports registered a 94.93 per cent rise to Rs 513.17 crore during 2002-03 as compared to Rs 263.26 crore during the previous year. India exports cars to about 80 countries including Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Algeria, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Courtesy: The Statesman, December 14, 2003

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Reva Electric Car Company (RECC) on Tuesday announced that it had bagged an order to export 500 electric cars to the United Kingdom. The Bangalore-based electric car firm, which recently received the European Economic Community (EEC) certification, would begin sales of the car in the UK from January, Reva Managing Director Chetan Maini told journalists. Reva, the first electric car from India, will be sold as 'G-WIZ' by Going Green Ltd, an environment solutions firm in the UK, where tax benefits were provided for an electric car. "The nearest electric car globally is atleast two to three times costlier than Reva", Maini said, adding, the company was leveraging on India's cost effective manufacturing to make the car affordable in the international market.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 10, 2003

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In the absence of a comprehensive policy on fisheries, the Seafood Exporters Association of India has decided to approach the Centre to formulate a national policy for fisheries. The fisheries sector accounts for Rs 6,700-crore exports. Domestic sales would be much more than this level. There is close to 7,000 km of coastline for the country spread across nine coastal states and several lakh fishermen depending on the sector for their livelihood. Despite all this, there is no coherent policy for the sector with any one particular agency designated for its implementation.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 09, 2003

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The Fortune magazine has named the city-based BPO company 24/7 Customer as one of six startups globally that have mastered the mandate of delivering value to the demanding customers. Featured in the Fortune article Surprise! The startups are back, 24/7 Customer is the only BPO company in the list along with Palo Alto-based software firm, VMware, San Jose-based networking company Airespace, Lisbon-headquartered software company Out Systems, Palo Alto-based PSS Systems and Zilliant based in Austin. About 24/7 Customer, Fortune said: "It caters to US corporations' love affair with outsourcing operations in India. Despite competition from big, established Indian players like Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consulting, 24/7 has assembled an impressive list of blue-chip customers, including two of the top five credit card banks, one the top three overnight couriers, one of the biggest software companies." The three-year-old company with 2,500 professionals on board recently raised $22 million VC funding from Sequoia Capital. Its sales are running about $30 million in a year with pre-tax profits hovering around $5 million.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, December 09, 2003

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Within three years of its inception, Tejas Networks, the Bangalore-based optical networking company backed by Sycamore-fame Desh Deshpande among others, has notched up a customer base of 15 global telecom carriers. The 'Made in Bangalore ' products from Tejas is now giving the global giants like Nortel, Alcatel and Ericsson, a run for their money. Despite a global slowdown in telecom, the Indian telecom market has been experiencing significant growth with the telcos here demanding the latest technology products at the most competitive prices. In a scenario where global telecom equipment companies are cutting back their R&D costs and focusing only on the high ROI spectrum of the market, there is a unique opportunity for Indian companies to develop leading-edge products that are designed in India, have direct relevance to the Indian market and have great potential for the global telecom market. This is primarily the centre-piece of Tejas's strategy. Till date, has shipped around 2,500 nextgen SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) systems to carrier of carriers like Tata Power, national backbones such as RailTel and DishnetDSL, regional networks like China Netcom, General Datacomm in Russia and MTNL here. Nextgen SDH switches from Tejas can transmit information on fibre optic cables from 150 Mbps to 2.5 gbps. The vibrant domestic telecom market in India can facilitate creation of several telecom product companies in the country. It is essential for the vendors to target the local market. After the product matures in the local market, the next step is to take it global. For example, Nortel had its first set of clients in Canada , so also Alcatel, which built a sizeable client base in France b