India, Canada to push bilateral trade to $20bn in the next five years
Montreal: India and Canada have resolved to achieve a $20-billion turnover in trade in goods and services in the coming five years, union minister of commerce & industry, Kamal Nath, said in Montreal on Monday.

According to an official release issued here, Nath said that Indian investment in Canada had picked up substantially in the last few months.

So far the Aditya Birla group company, Hindalco, has acquired Novelis for around $6 billion, Nath said. In April, the Essar Group acquired Algoma Steel for $1.7 billion. Last year, the Tata group acquired Teleglobe, a telecom company, and the Birla's picked up Minacs Worldwide, a business process-outsourcing firm.

According to the minister, this trend is likely to continue and that "more Canadian companies will invest in India, to exploit the synergies that exist between the two sides."

Kamal Nath is on an official visit to Canada, from June 16 to 18. He held bilateral meetings with David Emerson, minister of international trade, Canada, and Dalton McGunity, premier of Ontario, besides holding bilateral talks with the premier of Quebec.

He also said that India and Canada have also concluded negotiations for a bilateral investment protection agreement to provide an impetus to the two-way investments.
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India, Pakistan to go ahead with IPI pipeline
Mumbai: An Iranian delegation will visit India next month to finalise an agreement on the over $7-billion pipeline to bring gas from the fuel-rich nation to India via Pakistan.

"Only two weeks back, the secretary (ministry of petroleum) was in Tehran and after one month, they (Iranian officials) would be coming to meet us," petroleum minister Murli Deora said.

He said discussions were on with Iran and Pakistan on gas pricing and the pipeline route to India, adding that major issues have been sorted out while pending issues like transportation fees and alignment would be worked out soon.

In Pakistan, foreign office spokesman Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan is determined to implement the IPI project and transfer Iran`s gas to Pakistan and India.

Terming US skepticism on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline as "undesirable", Islamabad has said it was determined to implement the project.

The 2,300-km long pipeline will initially carry around 60 million cubic meters of gas per day, split equally between India and Pakistan.
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Ficci-Ernst &Young report: IT, ITeS dominate outbound investments to US
New Delhi: IT and ITeS dominate outbound investment from India to the US, accounting for 48 per cent of the total of 48 deals, worth over $2 billion in 2006-07, according to the latest FICCI-Ernst & Young (E&Y) report.

Terming 2006 as a watershed year for the corporate sector in terms of M&A activities, the `Report on Direct Investments in the US by Indian Enterprise' says that the overall outbound deals, or global M&A, valued at $4.3 billion in 2005, crossed the $15 billion mark in 2006. It forecasts that it could well breach the $35 billion level in 2007.

According to the report, outbound deals by Indian companies will increase in number and change in nature. "At present, only the big deals get reported, but there are a lot of small and mid-sized deals in the $20-$60 million range. It is likely that greater activity will be witnessed in this band in the next few years," a statement said.
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UK, India to discuss corporate issues, to set up task force
New Delhi: The ministry of company affairs is considering setting up a UK-Indian Corporate Taskforce, which will look at easing corporate and institutional issues for the business community of the two countries. The initiative comes in the light of the fact that Indian companies are now recognizing the UK as a significant destination for investment.

The taskforce will deal specifically with issues on corporate laws and regulation, e-governance and delivery systems, capacity building and institutional infrastructure.

Accounting and auditing standards and principles are also an area of concern for the two sides, as Indian qualifications in accounting are not recognised in the UK.

"The British and Indian governments have set up a dialogue to discuss issues relating to the proposed new company law, which the Indian Government is currently formulating. Main issues which the law will cover, including investor protection and corporate governance, will be addressed," said the British High Commission spokesperson.

Indian trade body officials say that the taskforce will very likely be set up in the next two to three months, and may be headed by the secretary of the company affairs ministry, from the Indian side.

The ministry has also written to Assocham and CII asking them to nominate their representatives on the taskforce.

About 500-600 Indian companies have resident presence in Britain. The investment from India to the UK has been rising consistently, particularly in the IT sector.
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Army, Navy not to vacate spectrum without adequate alternatives
New Delhi: The spectrum crunch for mobile services has run into delays with the Indian Army and Navy refusing to give up radio frequency without adequate replacements. The department of telecommunications (DoT) is however banking on the Air Force to vacate a large chunk of the spectrum by July.

The Air Force is expected to vacate over 40 Mhz of spectrum, which would take care of the immediate demand from mobile operators.

Currently operators have more subscribers than they can manage withtheir spectrum allotments, leading to higher congestion levels.

The Army and Navy, together, hold only about 3 Mhz with them and therefore their refusal to vacate is not going to have a major impact.

It is expected that a meeting of a Group of Ministers, scheduled for the coming week will be able to resolve all the issues.

DoT officials said that the GoM will not only address the defence forces' concerns but also lay out a long-term roadmap for vacation of spectrum and creating user specific frequency bands.
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