End of the day for G-4, says Kamal Nath
New Delhi: A G-4 (US, EU, India and Brazil) attempt to sort out issues related to world trade order has collapsed comprehensively, with India now saying that it is up to the developed countries to arrive at a consensus for an early launch of the Doha Round of trade talks. These talks are aimed at liberalising world trade for goods and services.

"It is the end of the day for G-4 (the US, the EU, Brazil and India) - now it is for the full membership of WTO to take the Doha Round forward," the Union minister of commerce and industry, Kamal Nath, said at a news conference here. Nath was reacting to the failed G-4 talks at Potsdam, Germany, which wound up on Thursday.

Nath also shrugged off the threat of an expiring deadline for the conclusion of negotiations before the year-end, saying, "For us the bottomline is more important than deadline." The reference was to India's stated stance that the livelihood security of millions of Indian farmers would not be compromised on any count.

Nath blamed the US in particular, stating that it paid an estimated $10.8 billion last year in farm subsidies and at this week's meeting proposed an increase to $17 billion. He said, "The developed countries are looking at promoting and protecting the prosperity of their farmers, whereas in India we are talking about protecting the livelihood of our farmers."

Even though the Doha Round has been announced as a Development Round, Nath pointed out that many of the developed world were totally "oblivious to the development content of the Round and were instead focused mainly on seeking greater market access for their own products".
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Chidambaram asks PSUs to unlock full potential of PSEs
New Delhi: The Union finance minister, P Chidambaram, on Friday asked public sector enterprises (PSEs) to unlock the full potential of their human resources even as he suggested that more PSEs should go in for listing on stock exchanges to realise their true enterprise value.

"Today, successful companies value their enterprise by putting a value on their human resource. PSEs hide their value and one of the values they successfully hide is the quality of its human resources," Chidambaram said in his address at a navratna investiture ceremony here.

However, Chidambaram said that the only way to unlock value was to give PSEs more autonomy, make them accountable and remunerate their employees as they should be remunerated in any competitive environment.

The Finance Minister conferred navratna status on three central PSEs (CPSEs) - Bharat Electronics Ltd, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Power Finance Corporation Ltd.

A navratna status would enhance the financial and administrative powers of the CPSEs' boards.

With these three CPSEs getting navratna certificates, the number of CPSEs with navratna status has increased to 12.

Heavy Industries minister, Sontosh Mohan Dev, indicated that four more CPSEs — Nalco, NMDC, PowerGrid and REC are likely to get navratna status in the coming days.
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Govt working at doubling capacity of country's ports
Mangalore: The Union Government plans to double the total capacity of major and non-major ports in the country by 2012, and increase it to 1,500 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in the major and non-major ports in the country as on March 31, 2012. This would mark a significant increase over the current capacity of 750 mtpa.

According to Rakesh Srivastava, joint secretary (ports), department of shipping, Union ministry of shipping, road transport and highways, the Government was taking a number of measures, either through budgetary support, or by giving permission to the ports for internal or external borrowings to allow such an increase to occur.

Stating that GDP is likely to grow at 10 per cent in the next few years, he said ports would play a major role in this matter as they (ports) are handling almost 95 per cent of the export-import trade in the country.
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Inflation rate down to 4.28%, at a 58-week low
New Delhi: The annual wholesale price index-based inflation rose 4.28 per cent during the week ended June 9, lower than the previous week's increase of 4.80 per cent.

The year-on-year inflation level during the latest reported week, a 58-week low, was mainly on account of a fall in prices of primary articles and fuel items, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry here. Inflation was measured at 5.29 per cent in the week ended June 10 last year.

Inflation in the case of the primary articles' group continued to fall for the fifth consecutive month, while that in the fuel group slipped into the negative zone.

Lower inflation in foodgrains, fruits and vegetables, eggs, meat and fish and some other food articles pulled down the overall inflation in the case of primary articles to 7.58 per cent, from 8.20 per cent during the preceding week.

Inflation in the fuel group dropped to a negative 1.23 per cent, from 0.56 per cent in the week ended June 2. This is the lowest inflation in the fuel group since February 6, 1999, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

Inflation in manufacturing products, the largest contributor to the headline inflation, increased marginally to 5.25 per cent, from 5.13 per cent during the previous week, with textiles and chemicals among the items showing increase in prices.

Inflation in categories such as food products, rubber and plastic products, non-metallic minerals, metals and machinery, however, came down during the week.

The current headline inflation is much lower than the level projected by the RBI for the fiscal. The RBI has a target to contain inflation at close to 5 per cent during 2007-08 and bring it down to 4-4.5 per cent over the medium term.
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Electronics exports jump 35% to Rs1,53,300 crore
New Delhi: Electronics exports are estimated to have jumped 35 per cent in 2006-07 to Rs1,53,300 crore, with IT software and services sector accounting for over 92 per cent share in the overall export basket.

In the electronics hardware segment, export of consumer electronics, industrial electronics, computers, communication and broadcast equipment, and components touched Rs11,500 crore in the financial year 2007, rising from Rs9,625 crore in the previous year.

Computer software exports at Rs141,800 crore was up 36 per cent in rupee terms and 32 per cent in dollar terms during the fiscal.

According to the data by Department of IT, the overall electronics production in India jumped 29 per cent in 2006-07 to an estimated Rs2,45,600 crore with software industry accounting for the bulk 73 per cent of the overall production.
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