The company received the necessary government approval to bring the car into India a week ago.
The 2 litre new Mondeo will roll out in petrol and diesel variants.
The Mondeo enjoys around 21 per cent of the family car segment in Europe, and will compete with other D segment cars like the Honda Accord, the Hyundai Sonata and the Mercedes Benz C-class.

Spender said that Ford had no plans of introducing any of the Mazda models in the near future.
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Aiwa loses marketshare
Mumbai—Aiwa, well-known for its exchange schemes and discount offers in colour televisions and audio systems, has taken a beating, in volumes and marketshare, in the last few months.

Its marketshare in the CTV segment (according to ORG) has fallen to 4 per cent in April from 8 per cent in January 2001. Volumes are at around 16,300 units per month, down from 40,000 units a couple of months ago.
In the VCD segment it is much the same story. Aiwa’s marketshare has more than halved to 30 per cent in April 2001 from a commanding 63 per cent. Its share in the headphone (walkman) segment has dropped to 3.2 per cent from 9.4 per cent.
Company officials say that the Kabir Mulchandani-owned Baron International, the Indian distributor for the brand, has not been getting regular supplies of CTVs and audio products since February 2001.
CEO Kabir Mulchandani said Aiwa involved in restructuring , layoffs, plant closures and re-invention. "While the old products have been phased out, new ones haven’t been launched yet. Consequently, our supplies were affected from February 2001," he said.
Philips seems to have gained at Aiwa’s expense, with a 15 per cent marketshare in the headphone segment and a 90 per cent share in the CD-cassette recorder segment.

Marketmen say that there seems to be a rift between Baron and Aiwa over the success of the competing Chinese brand, TCL (also marketed by the Baron Group), in India.
The contract between Baron and Aiwa is valid till 2003.

Sony owns a 50 per cent stake in Aiwa, Japan, which has incurred major losses on account of fierce price competition and slow development of new products.
Globally, Aiwa is planning to lay off 10,000 workers. Sony is believed to be restructuring the company, which includes putting in place its own management team, closing several of Aiwa’s domestic plants and consolidating global operations. Aiwa is also moving its manufacturing base to Malaysia and China from Japan.
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RIL to set up Rs 500 crore EDC project
Ahmedabad—Reliance Industries (RIL) is setting up an ethylene dye chloride (EDC) project, with a capacity of over 4.5 lakh tonnes, at Hazira in south Gujarat for an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore. The company has begun to approach chloralkali manufacturers in Gujarat for a long-term supply of chlorine, for the project, as it is a crucial input to manufacture EDC.

RIL has also spoken to transporters for supply of chlorine in 10-tonne containers.
Confirming the development, an RIL sopkesman said: "RIL has decided to refurbish its PVC plant to start production of small quantity of EDC as part of its ongoing strategy of backward integration." He also confirmed that RIL had initiated trial runs for the EDC project.
Reliance -- which has a 270,000-tonne capacity PVC plant at Hazira petrochemical complex -- sources EDC from the open market and cracks it to make VCM, which is used as the final input for manufacturing PVC. Reliance has a capacity of 700,000-tonnes for PVC.
Industry sources say that RIL has approached Gujarat Ambuja and Searchchem -- leaders among chloralkali manufacturers in Gujarat -— for a ten-year supply deal for chlorine.

For caustic soda manufacturers, chlorine is a by-product, which is difficult to handle or store.
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Reliance Industries gets glowing mention in ‘Business Week’ magazine
New York—Reliance Industries has received a glowing account for its entrepreneurial skills and savvy use of the capital market by leading US magazine Business Week. The magazine however says that the litmus test for the company is yet to come with the opening up of Indian economy and competition from global companies increases.
According to the magazine’s cover story in its latest Asia edition, Reliance has grown so fast and so big that in less than forty years its production of petroleum products and petrochemicals accounts for three per cent of India's gross domestic product.
Stating that its ability to raise money was legendary, the magazine noted that the group was consistently profitable and earned $900 million on a revenue of $12.9 billion last year, up ten per cent from the previous year.
The magazine also adds that Reliance has come in for severe criticism for their close ties with officialdom which rankle rivals, though there is a long tradition of such relationships in India.
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Azad Group to set up coach building facility for Volvo
Bangalore—The Azad Group is setting up a separate coach building facility for the Volvo range of buses with an investment of Rs 6 crore in Whitefield near Bangalore.
Rajiv Wahi, executive director, Azad Group said the facility, which would be built next to the existing Jaico factory, would have a capacity to manufacture 50 buses in the first year going upto 200 within three years, he added.
The company recently tied up with Volvo for this project and is getting technology transfer, exhaustive training in India and Sweden, plus lot of help in developing local components by way of drawings and samples.
The company is targetting the first bus to be ready by September 2001 and start commercial production from January 2002.
Jaico Automobile Engineering, an Azad Group company, which builds specialised bus coaches is also increasing its capacity from 600 at present to 1,500 buses a year.
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Kinetic Engg outlines out new mktg initiatives
Bangalore-- Kinetic Engineering the Pune-based two-wheeler major has announced a series of marketing initiatives including an aggressive loyalty programme, a co-branded petrocard and other goodies.
The object of the company is according to Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Jt managing director of the Rs 1200 crore group to strengthen the company’s position in the ungeared scooters market.
The measures include a rewards and support programme called 'Kinetic for life' for its customers. The company is supporting an exchange initiative by its dealers for Kinetic scooters.
Now dealers under exchange programmes will trade off old Kinetic scooters for new scooters will buy the used vehicle at about 70 per cent of its purchase cost instead of 60 percent as was the case earlier.
Kinetic will also be the first to introduce the concept of an annual maintenance contract where the vehicle is serviced at a nominal Re 1 per day.
At the end of the free company service period --one year-- the customer is offered a maintenance contract where on payment of Rs 365, the vehicle is given four services during the course of the year.
But the offer does not end there. The customer will also get discounts on spare parts or any component for the scooter bought during the course of the year.
Kinetic is joining hands with a petroleum major to introduce a cobranded petrocard which will give plenty of benefits to the customer every time he / she buys fuel, gets the vehicle serviced, buys spares etc.
The points earned through these transactions can be redeemed by the card holder against free gifts, household articles, and even a free holiday.
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BP board gives nod for Balmer Lawrie divestment
Mumbai—The board of IBP has given its approval to divest its 68.10 per cent stake in Balmer Lawrie to a new company to be formed by the Government of India.
The demerger of IBP's holding in BLCL, a subsidiary company, would be carried out according to the scheme approved by the government, the company said.
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HC stays acquisition offer of Mount Everest Mineral Water
New Delhi--Delhi High Court has restrained Mount Everest Mineral Water promoted by Dadi Balsara from effecting changes in the management of the company as Bank of India has challenged this on the ground that it would affect recovery of the loan advanced to the company.
Accordingly the defendants have been stopped from effecting any change in the management of Mount Everest Mineral Water till July 16, the court said while issuing summons to the company, Dadi Behram Balsara and others.
The court also restrained Himachal Pradesh-based mineral water company from transferring its shares to three companies Vasistha Ventures, Foresight Holdings and Motwani Enterprise.
BoI's counsel Ashwini Mata contended that MEMWL has to refund to the bank an outstanding dues of over Rs 7.16 crore and the process was pending before the debt recovery tribunal.
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Telco seeks partner for passenger cars in China
Shanghai—Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company, Telco, a leading Indian automaker, is looking for a Chinese partner in order to make passenger cars in China.

Telco’s general manager for can design. NS Babu is in Shanghai to promote the company's Indica model fitted with a 1.4-litre engine and priced at about $12,080, the same price as the new Buick Sail sedan made by General Motors's Shanghai joint venture.
Though Telco hasn't exported any cars to China so far, it joins larger rivals Volkswagen, Toyota Motor and General Motors in attempting to grab a share of China's passenger car market, which is set to surge by half to one million vehicles in five years, from about 660,000 units last year.
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Gail to lay LNG pipeline to Bangalore
New Delhi—The Gas Authority of India, GAIL, plans to lay a 500-km natural gas pipeline from Kasargode in Kerala to Bangalore via Mangalore in Karnataka by 2003. The pipeline is estimated to cost about Rs 2000 crore ($462-million) and will be completed by end of 2003 end. The cost of the pipeline will be entirely borne by Gail, sources said. .
The pipeline would carry six million cubic meters of gas, out of which four million cubic meters is projected for use by a proposed 800 mw power plant at Bidadi near Bangalore, they said.
Gail would invest Rs 2500 crore ($535-million) to nearly double the carrying capacity of its main HBJ natural gas pipeline across seven states to 60.15 million cubic meters of gas per day from the current 33.4 million cubic meters, sources said.
The additional gas for supply through the expanded pipeline would be sourced from the proposed LNG terminal at Dahej in Gujarat. Gail is one of the four promoters of Petronet LNG, the consortium building the five million tonne LNG receipt and re-gasification terminal at Dahej.
Gas would also be sourced from LNG terminals planned by Shell India at Hazira and British Gas at Pipavav, sources said adding besides, HBJ pipeline would be extended to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan at an estimated cost of Rs 1000 crore.
Gail would be investing about Rs 10,000 crore in the next six years in various expansion projects, sources said.
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Telco bankers to seek company strategy for turnaround
Mumbai—Tata Engineering’s (Telco) consortium of bankers, led by the State Bank of India meeting on June 26 to seek details of the company’s future plans in the light of its Rs 500-crore loss posted for the fiscal ended March 2001.

Telco is all set to make a detailed presentation of its long-term initiatives to its consortium led by the State Bank of India (SBI), which has lent it Rs 3,000-crore.

Notable among the Telco initiatives is relooking at its financial investments to generate cash of Rs 300 crore this fiscal, and a five-year plan to increase its export to sales turnover ratio to 20 per cent from nine per cent as of now.

Corporate banking sources categorically said that while they remained confident of the Tata group’s inherent ability in pulling Telco out of its current rut, its greater concern is to get a first-hand account of where Telco is headed and whether the company’s problems have bottomed out.
Major initiatives that Telco is going to present to its bankers fall into the category of improved asset and revenue growth, total transportation solutions and better cost-management. The company has Rs 1,200 crore in financial investments — Rs 770 crore unquoted and Rs 430 crore quoted. This is part of its overall efforts to exit non-core areas. Over the last few years, Telco has brought down its balance-sheet footing by Rs 1,000 crore and a revisiting of its financial investments is very much in line with this. On the logistics side, the plans include getting heavily into non-cyclical areas of annual maintinence contracts, reconditioning of vehicles, financing, spare-parts. These will form part of the company’s larger plan to get into total transport solutions: right from the chassis to body-building. In simpler words, to be present in all points in the value-chain. Cost-management will be undertaken by taking forward efforts at having more control over fixed and variable-costs. These will cover staff reduction. Tata Engineering currently employs 24,000 people, but since 1996-97 has reduced the staffing by nearly 13,000. During the year to 2001, vehicle sales in aggregate terms went down by 14.5 per cent to 1.7 lakh units. The commercial vehicle (CV) segment where the company commands two-thirds of the market-share has dipped by 19.8 per cent. In the utility and passenger car segment, volumes have gone down by 13 per cent.
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RPL says ‘unfair’ offtake regime
New Delhi—Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) has asked the petroleum ministry’s to intervene and provide it a level-playing field vis-a-vis the public sector refineries for supply of controlled petroleum products in the domestic market during the period till the administered pricing mechanism is completely dismanteled.

Sources said that the guidelines of the petroleum ministry on marketing of controlled products from the private sector refineries during the transition period clearly states that "the private sector refineries of Reliance Petroleum and Essar Oil would be treated at par with other PSU/joint venture refineries in the country in the matter of offtake of their controlled products during the transition period".

However, RPL has pointed out in a letter to the petroleum ministry that despite these notifications, PSU refineries are being given preference over private sector refineries for supply of petroleum products in the domestic market.

The domestic absorption provided to RPL for motor spirit (petrol) is insignificant as compared to the domestic absorption being provided for others. Even in case of diesel, domestic absorption provided to private refineries is very low compared with that of the PSU refineries, says Reliance.
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State Bank may post 10 percent rise in net profit
Mumbai-- State Bank of India (SBI) may record a 10 per cent growth in its net profit during 2000-2001 say analysts, and say though the bank will incur a healthy operating profit over 20 per cent, the growth in net profit of the bank will shrink substantially during the year.

The investment return of the bank out of total portfolio of over Rs 1,00,000 crore will even out the outflows to ensure a flat return.

The bank’s net profit for 1999-2000 had increased by 99.6 per cent to Rs 2,051.55 crore from the previous year’s level of Rs 1,027.8 crore. SBI’s operating profit had increased by 21.77 per cent to Rs 4,202.50 crore during 1999-2000.

Analysts expect that the bank will have a major outflow on two accounts — VRS, where 25,000 employees had opted for the scheme and expenses for the Indian Millennium Deposits (IMD), while the provisions for the non-performing assets (NPA) may come down.
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Larsen & Toubro's Lankan debut goes sour
Mumbai--Larsen & Toubro's (L&T) entry into the Sri Lankan market has turned sour with Larsen and Toubro Ceylinco, its joint venture there, incurred a loss of Rs 12 crore during the last fiscal.

The joint venture was formed with the Ceylinco group of Sri Lanka and last year was the first year of operations.

The company, in its annual report, has attributed the reported loss to the severe competition in the Sri Lankan market.

Along with Gujarat Ambuja, L&T is the second Indian company to make an attempt to establish major presence in Sri Lanka.
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LG launches 40-inch PDP TV
Bangkok--LG Electronics has launched the world's thinnest 40-inch digital plasma display panel (PDP) television, a new variant in the high-definition television category.

The product will be launched in the Indian market by August this year and will carry a price tag of Rs 8-14 lakh.

Ken Lee, vice-president and general manager (digital TV division) said: LG’s investment for the PDP category would be around $1 billion by 2005. The strategy would be to focus on the industrial market segment.

LG is emphasizing on the new display product business such as PDP, flat TV and monitors, liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs and monitors as the high value products improve the global revenue, and burnishes the firm's brand image too.
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BAT to move FIPB
New Delhi-- BAT Plc has decided to apply to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to increase its stake in VST Industries, though it is yet to ask for a no-objection certificate from ITC Ltd. BAT already holds 32.17 per cent in the Hyderabad-based tobacco company.

A BAT spokesperson said: "Yes we will go to the FIPB and put in an application soon".

BAT has over 32 per cent in ITC Ltd and under the policy it has to get a go-ahead from the board if it wants to hike its stake in VST were it also has an interest as they are in the same area of business.

The move comes close on the heels of VST board's decision to support BAT in its bid to increase its stake, citing BAT's long association and commitment to the Hyderabad-based company.
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Apollo plans telemedicine network
Chennai--The Chennai-based Apollo Hospitals recently participated in the 6th International telemedicine conference conducted in Uppsala, Sweden. This is the first time that an Indian hospital is participating in the international conference on telemedicine. The other participants in the conference were from Sweden, Germany, France, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Australia, Argentina and China.

Addressing a press conference here immediately before the conference, Dr Prathap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals said the telemedicine conference using the state-of-the-art video conferencing system is the beginning of an end and "India would soon witness a revolutionary change in the medical delivery system with expertise from across the country coming in aid of patients in rural India, in a cost effective way. What we are seeing today is the beginning of a new era, whereby all Indian’s would enjoy the fruits of technological development", Dr Reddy said.

He said Apollo would take the lead in networking India with telemedicine centres. He said the technology platform developed in-house by the Group for the purpose is tested and proved and the only hitch in networking the nation is the availability of optic fibres that transfer data to and fro.

He said Apollo has approached Reliance, which is laying an optical fibre backborn crisscrossing India, for bandwidth and the latter has agreed to provide sufficient bandwidth for Apollo.
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Barista wants to offload equity
Mumbai--Barista Coffee Company, the coffee retail chain promoted by the Turner Morrisson Group, is looking out for a strategic partner to offload around 26 per cent equity stake. The main aim in inducting a partner is to bring in more expertise and value-addition to the brand.

The strategic partner could either be a foreign coffee retail chain like StarBucks or a domestic coffee maker. The company is also looking at investing around Rs 25-40 crore during the current financial year to augment its retail outlets. So far, Barista has invested Rs 15-18 crore over the last year.

As part of the expansion plans, Barista will also increase the number of its espresso bars from 34 to 76.

Rabo India Finance has been closely working with Barista to find a partner, sources said.
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