20.09.2006

Arcelor-Mittal, SCI JV on cards
Partners to hold 50% each in the JV which will be registered in India
Arcelor-Mittal produces 110 million tonnes of steel at 26 locations across the world.
It consumes around 175 to 180 million tonnes of iron ore annually, most of its sourced from Brazil.
It also requires huge quantities of coking coal – around 60 to 70 million tonnes at the rate of 0.6 tonne for every 1 tonne of steel produced.
The JV will help the company cut transportation costs of iron ore.

DoT puts FIPB rider on foreign investors
Telcos may require FIPB nod if the foreign stakeholder is entitled to have a nominee on its board of directors. This is irrespective of the foreign component in the telecom venture.

HFCs may be allowed to tap insurance, PFs of resources
The government may soon permit housing finance companies to tap provident funds and insurance companies for raising resources.
They may also be allowed to raise long-term hedges to help them reduce their financing costs.

Schumi’s last lap puts bookings for Shanghai F-1 on fast track
The 37 year German F-1 racer Michael Schumacher (who announced his retirement from F-1 racing recently) is touted as the most charishmatic driver since Ayrton Senna, who crashed to death at Imola in 1994.

PM to meet TNA MPs on efforts to resolve the ethnic conflict
PM is slated to meet the MPs from Sri Lanka.
The conflict has so far claimed 65,000 lives since 1983.

All India penetration for toothpastes is 49%, for shapoos it is 38% and for skin-creams it is 22%.

Riding retail boom: Railways in talks with AVB Group
India loses Rs. 50,000 cr every year due to an inefficient vegetablexs and fruit supply chain system.
Of about 400 mln tonnes of freight in agri products, the railways has a share of only 50 mln tonnes.

UB plans wine foray
The still nascent domestic wine consumption is pegged at 7.5 lk cases annually; but growing at 20-30% YOY.

Reliance and Chevron now eye retail mart
Reliance Petroleum is developing a new $6.1 bln refinery with a capacity to refine about 580,000 barrels a day. This coupled with the existing refinery capacity of about 660,000 bpd will make it the largest refiner in the world at one site.

Reinventing Bretton Woods ‘brats’
IMF has 184 member countries.
The IMF board has taken an in principle decision to increase the quotas (voting power) of four countries – China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey, as part of the first stage of broader process of quota reform over the next two years.

NAM has 116 countries as members.
The slippery slope: A fall in oil price highlights the traps in commodity investment
The IEA reckons that OPEC has no more than 2 mln bpd of spare capacity – just over 2% of global demand.
That is too small a cushion to compensate for dramatic disruption in supply from Iran (which supplies 3.9 mbd), Nigeria (2.3 mbd) or Iraq (2.1 mbd) and barely enough to make up for another terrible hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico (1.5 mbd).

Slow fast clearance
Till July 2006 end, the RBI cleared cheques worth Rs. 88,80,997,62 cr, which is about Rs. 50,000 cr more than last year. This is in spite of having an RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) mechanism in place.
Money parked in savings bank accounts across banks rose to Rs. 14,000 cr from Rs. 4,000 cr last year.

AT&T gets nod for long distance services in India

RLS (Reliance Life Sciences) stars contract research of biopharmaceuticals
The Indian biotech industry’s share in global market is just 1.1%.
In the international market, the combined US and EU biogeneric market is expected to reach $21 bn by 2015.
The global biotech market is currently pegged at $52 bn.

Biocon launches new drug for head and neck cancer
Head and neck cancer accounts for 30% of all cancer cases in India.
The market size for monoclonal antibodies in India is around Rs. 50 to 60 cr. This market is expected to almost tripel in value over the next 6 eyars from $10.3 bn in 2004 to $30.3 bn.

OECD Secretary General : Mr. Angel Gurria

Cairn Energy to begin oil drilling this week
Ravva field has oil reserves of 70 mbd as per initial estimates.
The recent revised estimates put the reserve level at 300 mbd.
In Rajasthan, Cairn Energy made a discovery of an estimated 20 mn tonnes of oil, the biggest in India in 22 years.

AI-Indian merger on track, says Patel
The merger of Air India and Indian would churn out a mega carrier with a fleet of about 130 aircraft.

Blogs coin new money talk
India has 28 mln internet users and 86% of these users browse blogs, says Juxt Consult, an online research company.

ETFs face swings & bounces here
AUMs (Assets under management) of domestic ETFs rose to Rs. 1,563 cr in August from Rs. 868 cr in March.
AUMs of international ETFs have risen to $487 bn.
The number of ETFs has grown to 596 in June from 336 in 2004.

Car production
GM is the world’s leading producer of automobiles with about 9.05 mln vehicles produced in 2005.
Toyota comes next with 8.23 mln vehicles.