COMPANIES
Wipro
to set up development centre in Mexico
Mumbai: Wipro Technologies will open its first
development centre in Monterrey, Mexico, where it
aims to reach a headcount of 100 in a year's time.
Wipro
made the announcement coinciding with the visit of Mexican President Felipe Calderon
Hinojosa to its campus.
"Obviously
there is fresh investment. Within a year's time we will reach 100 people. In next
two years, we will double it (headcount)," Wipro chairman Azim Premji said.
The Mexican
President said he would explore the possibility of introducing in his country
some of the policies that helped India achieve an envious position in the IT sector.
Wipro officials
said the Monterrey facility provides the company a dedicated resources to service
clients in North America, Latin America and Europe with bi-lingual talent in a
convenient time zone and close proximity.
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Sonata
to set up another centre in Hyderabad
Mumbai: Sonata Software will set up its second
development centre in the emerging IT hub at Kokapet,
near Gachhi Bowli, in Hyderabad.
The
company has been allotted seven acre in the SEZ being set up by the government
of Andhra Pradesh for setting up an IT campus. Sonata plans to invest Rs100 crore
to build a state-of-the-art campus, which will function as a dedicated facility
for its global clients, the company said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange
(BSE).
"We
have had excellent experience with our first facility in Hyderabad, and are pleased
that we shall now be setting up the second facility here. The new campus B will
help extend our world-class infrastructure to support our future growth plans,"
said Ramaswamy, president and managing director of the company.
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GENERAL
Russian
steam coal exporters eye India
Mumbai: Steam coal exporters from Russia expect
India to be a new market for their high-quality coal
within the next few years, delegates at the McCloskey
coal conference in New Delhi said.
The
Russian exporters do not see any immediate action on the export front, but expects
to make it over a few years. "We will not be exporting anything to India
during 2008 but within a few years if they are ready to pay market prices and
we can overcome credit and risk issues then India will be a market for us,"
he said.
India
is importing coal from Australia, Indonesia and South Africa and there has been
a rush recently to buy coal with the highest calorific value possible because
record freight rates make it uneconomic to take mostly low-value coal from Indonesia.
Russia's
major coal exporters, however, said they expect to get higher prices from customers
in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan than in India or Pakistan.
Russia's
largest coal exporters are SUEK, KRUTrade and MirTrade. Russian spot coal FOB
Vostochniy is currently around $80 a tonne.
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Brazil
may overtake India as top sugar grower in 2008-'09,
says ISO
Mumbai: Brazil could soon win back the crown as
the world's top sugar producer from India, due to
weather trends and a growing appetite for cane-based
biofuel, the London-based International Sugar Organisation
(ISO) forecast in its latest monthly report.
India,
the world's top sugar consumer, is set to overtake Brazil as the world's top producer
of the sweetener in 2007-08 (October/September).
The
ISO predicted Indian output in 2007-08 at an all-time high of 33.15 million tonnes,
up 8 per cent year-on-year. Indian consumption runs at about 20 million tonnes
a year.
While
the crop so far has been good aided by good monsoons, future monsoons may not
be favourable to the crop. "Indian dominance is not for ever," said
Sergey Gudoshnikov, a senior economist with the ISO.
The
sharp fall in raw sugar prices, which have shed a fifth so far this year due to
a global supply glut, will lead Indian farmers to plant alternatives, such as
cereals and soybeans, for the 2008-09 crop, analysts said.
Last
month, the ISO projected Brazilian sugar production in 2007-08 (October/September)
at 32.38 million tonnes, up less than three per cent year-on-year.
India
has exported 1.5 million tonnes of white sugar since January 2007, when a ban
on overseas sales ended, the ISO said, quoting industry reports. Brazil, however,
will remain the world's largest exporter.
Analysts
said India was not likely to remain the top sugar producer in 2008-09 because
of the outlook for steady growth in the Brazilian sugar industry, as well as uncertainty
over future monsoons and expectations of a huge buildup of stocks in India.
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China's
foreign trade hits $1.37 trillion in Jan-Aug '07
Mumbai: China's foreign trade hit $1.37 trillion
during the first eight months of the current year
while its trade surplus in August rose nearly 33 per
cent year-on-year to $24.98 billion, latest customs
figures showed.
The
figure was slightly higher than the $24.36 billion in July but short of the record
$26.91 billion in June, figures from the General Administration of Customs said.
In
August, exports reached an all-time high of $111.4 billion, up 22.7 per cent year-on-year
yet down 11.5 percentage points over July. Imports grew 20 per cent to $86.4 billion,
also a record high.
China's
trade volume totaled $1.37 trillion during January-August of 2007, up 24 per cent
on last year, the report said.
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MARKETS
Power
Grid IPO subscribed 2.43 times by second day
Mumbai: The initial public offer of Power Grid
Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL), the country's biggest
power transmission utility, was subscribed over two
times on the second day of its issue.
The
issue received bids for 1395.6 million equity shares against the 573.9 million
shares on offer.
The
company is expecting to raise up to Rs3,000 crore through its issue, for which
the price band has been fixed between Rs44 to Rs52 a share.
The
issue has received robust response in the Qualified Institutional Buyers category
especially from the foreign institutional investors. The portion reserved for
FIIs had been subscribed over two times.
The
proceeds would be used to part finance 15 projects that entail a total investment
of Rs12,280 crore. PGCIL owns and operates 61,875 circuit km of transmission lines.
The proposed 15 projects would enhance its transmission system by 13,022 circuit
km.
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BANKING
AND FINANCE
Indian
Overseas Bank ropes in ICRA for rating loans
Mumbai: Chennai-based Indian Overseas Bank (Bank),
a premier nationalised bank, has signed a memorandum
of understanding (MoU) with ICRA Ltd under which the
latter will assign ratings to the bank's loans and
its other exposures under the standardised approach
of RBI's new capital adequacy framework, Basel-II.
ICRA
would carry out the ratings under its "Line of Credit" rating service
and would enable the bank to assess the new risk weights applicable to its borrowers
under Basel-II, ICRA informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in a filing.
The
risk weights would be linked to the various rating categories and would be as
per RBI's guideline. To assist potential and existing borrowers of the bank in
obtaining ratings, ICRA is offering special terms to the clients of the Bank covered
by the MoU.
The
MoU seeks to deliver benefits to the bank as well its clients. For the bank, ICRA's
line of credit ratings would assist in implementing the Basel-II capital adequacy
norms. For the client, an ICRA rating may place the rated entity in a superior
position in terms of faster loan processing and to obtain competitive credit terms
from the bank.
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