Asian soaps meet to be held in India
Mumbai: The Asian conference on soaps, detergents and cosmetics being held for the first time in India will bring together all players in the soaps, detergents and cosmetics industries in the Asian region. Over 275 delegates at least 65 overseas delegates, mainly from countries in South-East Asia are expected to participate in the three-day event, to be held in Goa during March 13-16.

A special feature of the conference would be the participation of nearly 40 students studying oils and fats technology. The conference will examine the changing paradigm in the homecare, personal care and beauty industries in Asia. Commercial, environmental and regulatory issues would also be discussed. The changing marketplace and raw materials scenario, as also emerging technologies, will be the focus of attention.

Senior representatives of top corporates such as Unilever, Sara Lee, Colgate Palmolive, Proctor & Gamble, ICI and Godrej will make expert presentations. Product manufacturers from India and abroad, technologists and entrepreneurs are registered delegates.
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Non-voice mobile applications fastest growing
New Delhi: Research firm IDC India has said that the non-voice market within the mobile telephony segment grew the fastest at 139 per cent in 2004 over the previous year.

At present, non-voice revenue contributes around 4.7 per cent to the total mobile services revenue and even though this is behind the international standards, it is quickly catching up.

The biggest contributor continues to be short messaging service accounting for nearly 70 per cent of revenues from non-voice applications is expected to remain so in the near future, IDC said.

MMS services have not yet picked up as expected because of lack of handsets and high cost of service.

Among other data services, monophonic ring tones are the most popular ones with an annual traffic of over 19 million IDC said.

Polyphonic tunes and other downloads such as wallpapers, logos and games are also fast catching up and are expected to grow much faster once there is more number of compatible handsets available at a lower cost.
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Ficci wants fringe benefit tax reviewed
New Delhi: The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) wants a review of the fringe benefit tax (FBT) saying the tax will put an unnecessary burden on employees and will lead to double taxation.

FICCI says FBT could also prove to be a major hurdle to Indian companies spending heavily on brand-building campaigns to globalise operations. Foreign direct investment inflows and the growth prospects of the manufacturing sector will also be affected. It said that even though corporate tax has been cut from 35 to 30 percent the increase in surcharge coupled with the continuing education cess makes the effective tax reduction only 3 per cent.
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