COMPANIES

Mahindra & Mahindra to assemble Scorpio in Brazil, Egypt
Mumbai: Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) plans to launch its Scorpio SUV in the Brazilian and Egyptian markets.

While the company will assemble the Scorpio in Brazil, it will export knocked-down units to Brazil for local assembly.

The Mumbai-based automaker has tied up with a local partner in Egypt to undertake the imports and assembly of the knocked down kits.

In Brazil it has tied-up with Bramont as its local Brazilian partner to assemble annually 5,000 units of the Scorpio, marking the company's. This is the company's second entry in Latin America after Uruguay, where it assembles the Bolero.

Tata Motors also has Latinn American operations in Brazil and Argentina.

To celebrate M&M having reached the manufacture of two million vehicles, it donated two Scorpios to non-governmental organisations. On the occasion, Keshub Mahindra, chairman, M&M, said, "We took 50 years to sell the first million vehicles. The next one million was achieved in 10 years."
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Ispat to invest Rs10,000 crore over five years
Mumbai: Steelmaker Ispat Industries Limited is planning to expand overseas through capacity expansion and backward integration. It will also invest about Rs10,000 crore within five years to ramp up its domestic production.

"Ispat Industries Limited (IIL) and its parent company global steel holdings are working on plans to expand operations both in India and overseas. We would be ramping up our production at Dolvi plant near here from 3 mt to 3.6 mt per annum," IIL executive director, finance, Anil Surekha said.

He said the company's domestic expansion plans include building a 1 million tones per annum (MTPA) coke oven plant and 4.5 MTPA coke pellet plant (likely in Visakhapattanam).

Surekha said Rs3,000 crore would be required for ramping up Dolvi plant's capacity from 3.6 mt to 5 mt by 2011-12. IIL's proposed 2.8 mt plant in Jharkhand would require an investment of about Rs5,750 crore, he added.
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GENERAL

Safer to sell uranium to India, says Australian minister
Mumbai: Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer has rejected the suggestion that selling uranium to India would constitute a risk to global security, saying that on the contrary, selling uranium to India would, in fact, make the world a safer place.

"I don't think there is a risk... I think the reverse in fact is the case - that the more you can get the Indian nuclear programme - civil nuclear programme under UN inspections - under the UN protocols of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the better," he told an Australian radio channel.

"I think that creates a safer and more secure environment for those power stations. That it (India) has got nuclear weapons already, that is a done deal. They don't need Australian uranium for that - they've done it already," he said.

Downer's remarks came ahead of a decision by the Australian cabinet's national security committee on the issue of selling uranium to India.

The committee is due to consider a proposal by Downer that Australia sell uranium to the India to help fuel its expanding nuclear power industry.

The committee is expected to approve the proposal, making a radical shift in Australia's foreign policy, which prevents uranium sales to countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 'The Age' reported.
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Indira Gandhi national Open University to assist in educational FM broadcast
Minister of information and broadcasting and parliamentary affairs P R Dasmunsi has said the government has signed an agreement with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to put in operation FM stations for education broadcast at 40 places.

The minister said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today that out of the 40 FM stations, 26 are presently operational and the government had agreed to set up FM stations for educational broadcasts by IGNOU at 15 more places.

The FM stations set up by IGNOU, called Gyan Vani, are devoted exclusively to education and community development. These interactive participatory educational stations are aimed at great empowerment of the people particularly the disadvantaged sections of the society located in the remote and distant areas of the country.

The programmes include information relevant to students of pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher secondary, as well as enrichment programmes to build environmental awareness, womens empowerment, legal literacy, professional education and science education.
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India`s forex reserves tops $213 billion
Mumbai: Foreign exchange reserves of the country have touched $213.35 billion as of June 30, official figures given by the government said.

Foreign currency assets rose to $206.11 billion while gold assets stood at $6.79 billion, minister of state for finance P.K. Bansal told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

The country's reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was $460 million and Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) were to the tune of $1 million.
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Malaysia allows banks to set up foreign currency business units
Mumbai: Malaysian central bank Bank Negara Malaysia said it will allow commercial and investment banks in the country to set up international currency business units (ICBUs) to undertake international currency business under Islamic finance in Malaysia.

It had earlier allowed Islamic banking business in international currencies under a division set-up at Malaysian Islamic banks licensed under the Islamic Banking Act 1983.

"Commercial and investment banks licensed under the Banking and Financial Institutional Act 1989 are now allowed to establish ICBUs to carry out Islamic banking business under their existing entities," BNM governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz said in a keynote address at the second Malaysian Islamic Finance 2007 conference.

To date, eight financial institutions have been granted approval to set up ICBUs in Malaysia, Zeti said.
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INTERNATIONAL

Yahoo beats Google in user satisfaction, says survey
Mumbai: Yahoo Inc. has beaten internet search giant Google Inc to second place in consumer satisfaction, according to a recent study.

For the first time users gave Yahoo's services overall a better rating than what Google Inc received, according to the study by the University of Michigan American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The study showed Yahoo had seen its customer satisfaction score rise 3.9 per cent from a year ago to 79 out of 100 points, while Google's rating fell about 3.7 per cent to 78 points.

While Google remains the dominant web search engine, Yahoo's internet presence is gaining user approval for its network of web sites, e-mail, social networks and other features, according to the survey.

While Google has developed its own e-mail, desktop office and chat applications, among other features, they have not drawn enough attention to them among regular users, it said.

Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, which has moved its focus from internet access services to become an ad-supported source of e-mail and entertainment, slipped more than 9 per cent to a score of 67 points.
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Global credit market squeeze to hit buyouts: Blackstone
The tightening of the global credit market will make acquisitions more difficult, warns US private equity giant Blackstone, as cheap bank credit to fund takeovers will no longer be forthcoming because of weakness in the US sub-prime loans market and higher interest rates.

Blackstone's comments accompanied its unveiling its second quarter net profit that jumped to $774 million from $224m a year earlier on revenues of $973 million from the year before, though below market expectations of $992 million.

The private equity firm that had raised $4.13 billion in a partial floatation said it was now facing "more challenging financing conditions". In July it acquire The Hilton Hotels chain for $26 billion.

The Chinese government owns a 10-per cent stake in Blackstone.
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