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Cabinet to discuss fuel price hike tomorrow
New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will meet tomorrow to discuss, among other issues, an increase in petrol and diesel prices.

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has been asked to consult Left parties on raising petrol and diesel prices by about Rs2 each and convey their opinion to Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

The leaders of Left parties held a meeting with UPA government leaders in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were present, but a discussion on a hike in petroleum prices was not discussed.

Officials said though petrol and diesel prices warrant a hike of Rs4.5 and Rs5 per litre on account of spurt in international crude oil prices and rise in tax rates, government may settle for a hike of about Rs2 each to limit the impact on the common man.

Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and IBP, are together losing Rs72 crore per day due to non-revision in petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene prices.
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Govt. approval for three more SEZs
New Delhi: The Commerce Ministry has given its in-principle approval for the setting up of three special economic zones (SEZs), one each in Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka.

While the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation plans to set up an apparel park in Surat, the proposed Bangalore SEZ would cater to the telecom and IT sector.

The Commerce Ministry has also given an in-principle approval for Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation to set up a multi-product SEZ at Gurgaon in Haryana.
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N. America accounts for over 60 per cent of IT/ITeS exports
New Delhi: According to provisional data provided by Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), the North American market (mainly US and Canada) accounted for 61.10 per cent of India's total exports of software services and IT-enabled services (ITES) in 2004-05.

During 2003-04, North America's share in the export basket had stood at 61.68 per cent.

"Our effort is to further bring down the dependence on the North American market for software export and to spread it widely to other destinations including newer markets. The very fact that we could reduce the dependence on the US market over the years from 98 per cent to a more reasonable figure of about 60 per cent is a good achievement. But the effort would be to peg the North American market to somewhere in the vicinity of 50 per cent in the long run, without in any way affecting our lead position in the growing US market," D.K. Sareen, Executive Director, ESC, said in a statement here.

According to ESC, the value of exports to the North American market grew from Rs35,777 crore in 2003-04 to Rs47,231 crore in 2004-05, translating into a growth of 32 per cent.

EU countries occupied the second slot in the overall software and ITES export from the country. "The market share has grown up to 26.86 per cent in 2004-05 from 25.09 per cent registered in 2003-04. In absolute terms, software & ITES export stood at Rs20,763 crore in 2004-05 as against Rs14,550 crore in 2003-04," he said.

The third largest destination for software and IT export was Japan, Korea and other Far East nations. In absolute terms, export to these destinations marginally declined in 2004-05 to Rs3,092 crore from Rs 3,110 crore earlier. Next come Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries.
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