Forex reserves up $402 million in week
Mumbai: India’s foreign exchange reserves rose $402 million during the week 25 February 2000. With that, total foreign exchange reserves rose to $35.59 billion, including foreign currency assets of $32.64 billion, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s weekly statistical supplement.

Inflows have been strong on account of foreign funds being net buyers in the Indian stock markets, In February net inflows from foreign institutional investors were $708 million.
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Cellular numbers crossed 1.5 million in 1999
New Delhi: India’s mobile phone subscriber base shot up by half a million in 1999 to reach 1.58 million from 1.07 million a year earlier, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India.
Most of the growth happened in the second half of 1999.

In 1999, the metropolitan cities had a total of 6.93 lakh subscribers, and ‘A’ circles had 4.73 lakh.
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Global Trust to offer 20% to foreign partner
Mumbai: Global Trust Bank has informed stock exchanges that it will 20 per cent of its equity to a foreign partner through a preferential share allotment. It may either rope in a foreign bank as a strategic partner or offer up to 20 per cent of its equity to other foreign investors.

The proposal, cleared recently at a GTB board meeting, will be placed before an extraordinary general meeting of the bank’s shareholders on 27 March.
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Anti-dumping duty on metronidazole
New Delhi: The commerce ministry’s directorate general of anti-dumping and allied duties has notified an anti-dumping duty on imports of metronidazole from China. Metronidazole is an anti-diarrhoeal and anti-microbial drug. The duty, which is provisional, will apply to all metronidazole imports below Rs 519 per kg.
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SSI credit scheme in two months
Mumbai: The Credit Guarantee Scheme for small scale industry is expected to become operational in two months. The scheme, which will be implemented by the Small Industries Development Bank of India, will have a total corpus of Rs. 2,000 crore.
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Advance I-T can be paid at more bank branches
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has said in a press release that advance income tax can be paid at 415 specified bank branches. These include 76 branches of the Bank of Baroda, 72 of Bank of India, 21 of Dena Bank, 37 of Indian Overseas Bank, 70 of State Bank of India, 17 of United Bank of India, and 28 of UCO Bank.
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IT ministry accuses telecom dept for Net delays
New delhi: The newly created ministry of information technology has blamed the department of telecom for delays in facilitating district-level Internet access. The national task force on information technology wanted DoT to set up Internet access nodes in 327 telecom districts across the country by 26 January 2000.

Instead, it is reported, the telecoms department will set up only five Internet access nodes by 30 March this year. It seems DoT has suggested that to compensate for the massive delay, it would levy local call charges in the remaining 322 telecom districts.
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Definitive dumping duty on Taiwanese NBR
New Delhi: The designated authority in the commerce ministry has recommended a definitive anti-dumping duty on all imports of acrylonitrile butadiene rubber, or NBR, from Taiwan. The authority concluded that Taiwanese exporters have been exporting NBR to India at below ‘normal value’, and that Indian industry has suffered ‘material injury’ as a result of the dumping.

Also known as synthetic rubber, NBR is used to make articles like oil seals, hoses, and gaskets.
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US trade body throws out import duty on steel
Washington: On 3 March 2000 the US International Trade Commission has rejected threatened import duties as high as 80 per cent against cold-rolled steel imports from Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Russia, South Africa, and Thailand. The commission ruled that these imports were not a threat to the US steel industry.
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Crude oil at 9-year high
London: Assurances by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries that production would be expanded have done nothing to dampen crude oil prices. On 3 March crude prices shot up to their nine-year highs. One reason was concerns about a tight US gasoline market.

The high prices have been causing worries over the possibility of higher inflation rates in the global economy, which have led Opec to propose additional production. But the lack of details of such production plans has kept the crude markets firm.
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