India-China begin boundary talks
Beijing: After more than two years, India and China have begun a crucial round of negotiations to thrash out political parameters and the guiding principles for the settlement of the border dispute that has affected bilateral ties.

At the 15th meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on the India-China Boundary Question, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran is leading the Indian delegation, while its Vice Minister Wu Dawei leads the Chinese side.

During the two-day meeting, the JWC will discuss issues relating to the confidence building measures and clarifications in connection with the Line of Actual Control.

The JWG meeting is taking place ahead of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's maiden visit to India from April 9-12.

Besides Saran, the Indian delegation to the JWC includes Indian Ambassador to China Nalin Surie and other senior officials of the External Affairs Ministry.

During his stay, Saran will call on Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, and also hold talks with political leaders regarding Wen's Visit.
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IMF report: India must speed up reforms
Washington: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked India to speed up reforms in order to attain over 6-6.5 per cent GDP growth. It has prescribed removal of trade barriers, liberalisation of FDI regime and easing of labour laws.

"The acceleration of structural reforms is key to raising growth and employment. Medium term outlook hinges crucially on the ability of government to implement the agenda of macroeconomic policy and reforms," the IMF has said in a 61-page country report.

"India recorded growth above 8 per cent last year, one of the fastest in the world, and growth remains robust this year," it said.

Asserting that trade could be "powerful engine of growth" for Asia's fourth largest economy, the IMF said, "India's trade regime remains restrictive... Trade liberalisation should also be accelerated by lowering tariffs, introducing a more uniform duty structure and eliminating administrative barriers."

While the potential to make India a better place to do business was enormous, "what is holding it up is lack of infrastructure, regulatory burden, lack of labour market flexibility, need to improve bankruptcy and loan recovery frameworks, tax reform and eliminating protections and investment ceilings on small industry," the IMF said.
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European Business School hopes to start facility in India
Chennai: The European Business School (EBS), with university status in Germany, hopes to start a business school in India. Based in Oestrich-Winkel near Frankfurt, EBS students are sent to various Indian Institutes of Management on exchange programmes and the school now wishes to deepen the connection further by opening its own facility here.

A team from the school is currently touring the country and will interact with various educational institutions and companies to explore the possibility of starting a business school in India.

Started in 1971, the EBS offers bachelor's, master's and diploma programmes in management besides customised and specialised executive business programmes for various companies.

EBS has identified several niche management subjects such as innovation management and entrepreneurship and believes that there is good scope for executive education programmes in India, offering them with a strong European focus.

EBS authorities feel that there was also the possibility of attracting students from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and West Asia to the business school as and when it was started.
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Exporters plan dharna over DEPB issue
New Delhi: With the tax authorities retrospectively taxing the duty entitlement passbook credit (DEPB) given for promotion of exports, exporters all over the country are on the war path and are threatening to stage a dharna here on April 21 in order to draw the attention of the Government to their problems.

Addressing a joint press conference with leading export organisations covering engineering, textiles and the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO), the FIEO President O.P. Garg said that the issue of levying income tax on the profits of the sale of DEPB certification retrospectively is causing serious concern to the exporters. He pointed out that duty drawback and profit from sale on licences of exporters are correctly exempted from income tax, while the DEPB which came into existence in 1997 was not included by an inadvertent omission.

He said till assessment year 2001-02, exporters had been allowed to treat income out of DEPB as exempt under Section 80-HHC, while suddenly some field officials had raised the issue on technical ground that the world "DEPB" is not specifically mentioned in the said section.

Garg and other functionaries of other apex export councils said that the basic issue to be thrashed is what constitutes "negative profits". Whether the negative profit is to be computed after adding export incentives with profit directly derived from exports or "negative profits" meant if there is loss in exports excluding export incentives, they said.

Stating that exporters who export merchandise/products with high value addition are not largely hit, a vast majority of the small and medium exporters are directly hit because their only margins are the fillips such as duty drawback or DEPB made available to them as a reimbursement of the customs and excise duty incidence borne by them in the manufacture of the end products.

They contend that the export reimbursements are provided by the government to the exporter for purchase of material and are a reduction in purchase cost. As such, these export reimbursements/incentives are an integral part of export profits.

It is in this light that the exporters are seriously concerned over the reopening of old cases in DEPB and the issue of negative profits and the resultant attachment of bank accounts of exporters. The FIEO Vice-President, G.K. Gupta, cautioned that exporters are on the verge of collapse if the tax authorities continue to harass them on benefits they were legitimately entitled to by the Government policy. They said the persistent harassment might make as many as 30,000 small export units go bankrupt and more than Rs35,000 crore worth of the country's exports would be lost.
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