New economic advisory panel
New Delhi: Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has reconstituted the Economic Advisory Council. Four new members have been inducted while three have been dropped. The new members in the 12-member Council, headed by the prime minister, are Jagdish Shettigar, Bharatiya Janata Party’s economic cell chief, Rakesh Mohan of National Council for Applied Economic Research, Ashok Gulati and M. Narasimham. The members who are dropped are Arjun Sengupta, Ashok Desai and G.V. Ramakrishna.

The other members of the Council are I.G. Patel, P.N. Dhar, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Kirit Parikh and Amresh Bagchi. Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister will be a member of the council, while N.K. Singh, secretary to the prime minister, will be the member-secretary.

Meanwhile, the task force on infrastructure has been reconstituted to accommodate new civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav in place of Anant Kumar, who is now minister for culture, youth affairs and sports. The reconstituted task force will have Nitish Kumar, surface transport minister, Deepak Parekh, HDFC chairman, Anand Mahindra, industrialist, and the secretaries of the ministries of surface transport, civil aviation and the department of expenditure as members.
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Impressive industrial growth
New Delhi: Industrial growth has registered an impressive uptrend of 6.4 per cent in the first half of 1999-2000 against 4 per cent in the corresponding 1998 period. This has been possible as a result of growth in electricity and manufacturing sectors. Electricity sector alone recorded a high 16.5 per cent growth in the preiod under review comapred to a lowly 0.5 per cent growth in the comparable period last year. The index of industrial production data indicates that industrial output spurted by 7.6 per cent in September alone.

Other areas where significant growth has been achieved are mining and consumer durables. Capital goods and consumer non-durables sectors posted lower growth rates of 9.2 per cent and 1.6 per cent during April-September 1999.
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ECB norms eased
New Delhi: The finance ministry has eased the norms for external commercial borrowings. The procedures have been simplified both at the automatic clearance window of the Reserve Bank of India and at the discretionary clearance window of the finance ministry. The ministry said this is a move towards an ultimate single window clearance.

At present, ECB clearances up to $10 million are handled by the RBI. The government is likely to double the threshold in the policy to be announced for 2000-2001. Under the automatic clearance system, companies will now be allowed to seek clearances from the RBI’s regional offices, against the present system of clearances by RBI Main office in Mumbai. The clearances at the finance ministry level will be simplified. There will be only three stages thereby limiting an applicant’s visit to the North Block to three.
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CARE gives lower rating to IFCI plans
Mumbai: The Credit Analysis & Research has assigned A-plus (adequate safety with relatively higher standing within the category) rating to the debt programmes of the Industrial Finance Corporation of India and an even lower A (adequate safety rating) to its proposed preference share issue of Rs 350 crore. CARE"s A rating is three notches below the one assigned by IFCI-promoted rating agency Icra and two notches below that assigned by Duff & Phelps Credit Rating India.

Analysts say the lower rating by CARE will force IFCI to pay a premium of 0.35 to 0.40 per cent for its debt programmes compared with other financial institutions.
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Tribunal allows Canara Bank to proceed against Bachchan
Mumbai: The Debt Recovery Tribunal has allowed Canara Bank to proceed against Amitabh Bachchan and his wife Jaya, who had stood guarantee for the repayment of Rs 10 crore credit facilities availed of by Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited. The tribunal also ordered Mr Bachchan to declare on affidavit his assets as early as possible and that Canara Bank is within its rights to seek attachment of Mr Bachchan’s Juhu bungalow valued at Rs 10 crore. It has restrained Mr Bachchan and other respondents from selling or disposing of or creating third party interests in the bungalow.
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HDFC Bank plans debit card
Kochi: HDFC Bank is launching an international debit card. The card will be launched in tie-up with Visa in  few weeks. The facility will enable customers of the bank to use the card in the ATMs installed in the branches of the bank spread all over the country and at the ATMs of three major multinational banks, Citibank, Stanchart and Amex in any part of the world.
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Portuguese bank comes back
Mumbai: Portuguese bank Banco Nacional Ultramarino, which left India in 1961, is coming back. The bank has opened a representative office in Mumbai and an extension office in Goa. The bank intends to provide offshore trade financing to Indian companies and liaisoning for facilitating trade between India and Portugal. It will expand its activities in due course of time.

The bank is an international banking arm of the government-run Caixa Geral de Depositors Group, which is the largest bank of Portugal with net assets of about $45 billion.
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Softbank plans acquisition
Tokyo: Internet investor Softbank Corporation says it hopes to take over a large failed Japanese bank. The news comes after Softbank has announced it had slipped deeper into red for the second straight interim period, due to losses from the sale of a US subsidiary. Softbank said it has filed a proposal to acquire one of Japan’s biggest problem banks, Nippon Credit Bank with a team of major Japanese firms. Joining Softbank in the bid are Ito-Yokado, a retailing group, and its consumer financing company Orix Corporation as well as casualty insurer Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance.
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