Government to monitor impact of phasing out QRs
New Delhi: The government has announced that it would soon adopt an "institutional response" mechanism, including maintaining data base and monitoring the impact of abolishing quantitative restrictions on imports by April 2001, as part of the country's WTO obligation.

Speaking at a seminar on 'Implications of removal of quantitative restrictions', organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Mr. Anand said the government would build a comprehensive database to monitor import trends and make timely corrections to protect the domestic industry.

There were many sectors like toys, leather and granite where the Indian industry had an edge, and the country has to ensure that this edge is not lost, he said. In certain products like toiletries, beverages and matchboxes, imports would find it difficult to make a dent in the domestic market, due to the cost and brand advantage of Indian companies, he added.
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Indian hardware market buoyant despite global slowdown
New Delhi: Despite recent warnings on the slowdown in the US market by chip and computer firms, the Indian IT hardware industry seems to be on a firm growth path, says a recent IDC study. The study points out that industry performance index has gone up by 35 points in H1 2000-01, while the hardware industry has grown by 49 per cent in H1 2000-01.

According to the study, PC sales have increased by 63 per cent and networking hardware has grown by 65 per cent in the first half of the year over the corresponding period last year. The study notes that home segment is growing at a rapid pace over the last three years. The first half of 2000-01 also saw growth in the commercial segment as well. Shipments of commercial desktops shot up by almost 58 per cent in the first half of 2000-01 compared to the same period last year. Sales of notebook computers, which fall under commercial segment, grew by 68 per cent in unit terms.

This impressive performance in the first half is expected to be repeated in the second half of the fiscal, with another 9.5 lakh PCs being sold in the second half of the year. With a strong growth in the ISP and the call centre business, local area networking hardware market for products like switches and routers has notched a growth of 65 per cent. Peripherals have also seen pretty high growth rates - hard disk drives (104 per cent) and monitors (60 per cent). The market for monitors crossed the million units mark in the first half of the year.
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