"African information and communication technologies industry is an exciting place to be. Market liberalization continues and most countries have established regulatory bodies to ensure a fair, competitive and enabling environment, Hamadoun Tour, secretary-general of the ITU said on Monday. The secretary-general was speaking at the opening of a major trade fair "ITU Telecom Africa" in Cairo inaugurated by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The annual Sino-India border trade at Nathu La, which was to be reopened for the traders of the two countries on Thursday, has been postponed following the Union Commerce ministry's communique to the Sikkim government authorities, official sources said. Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities have cited the occurrence of landslides in several areas in the Tibet Autonomous Region disrupting the movement of people and goods as the reason behind postponement.
Meanwhile, the Indo-China Traders Association of Sikkim (ICTAS) demanded an upward revision in the number of items to be exported by the Indian traders at Nathu La mart in order to make the business financially viable for the traders. A function would be held at Nathu La frontier to mark the formal inauguration of the annual trade on May 1 and thereafter, the traders of the two countries would participate in trade of various commodities.
The observations are a part of the recently released edition of Asia Bond Monitor, a semiannual publication, which includes a theme chapter on Indian bond market. Lee said that securitization has a long history in India but the development has been slow and limted to a few asset types.
In the main list, Wal-Mart (revenue of $378.8 billion) is followed by energy giant ExxonMobil (372.8 billion dollars), which had topped the retail major from its top slot in 2006.Others in top 10 include Chevron, GM, ConocoPhillips, GE, Ford, Citigroup, Bank of America and AT&T.
A befitting memorial for about 267 martyrs, who laid down their lives guarding the country along the Indo-China border in the post-independence period, will be inaugurated on Saturday. The memorial, which has been named 'Watershed', used to describe the border in military nomenclature, will be inaugurated at Sherathang, some 5 km ahead of the Nathu La border pass.
Bharti Retail, owned by Sunil Mittal's Bharti Enterprises, on Wednesday started retail operations in the country with neighbourhood store format, Easy Day, from Ludhiana in Punjab. Bharti has set up three stores in Ludhiana.Bharti has announced plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) to set up stores across the country by 2012. The company said that it is looking at a retail space of 10 million square feet and employ 60,000 people.
Riding high on the retail boom in India, Bharti Retail on Wednesday opened its first store in Ludhiana.Meanwhile, the Bharti-WalMart joint venture is likely to kick off its cash and carry (wholesale) business in the third quarter of this year.
The Iraq war marked the onset of high and higher oil prices. There was a steady rise in the prices of most commodities in the global markets including metals and food in the last three years for various reasons including substantially increased consumption in new markets such as China, Russia, India and West Asia. However, till recently, most economies were able to manage such price escalations through classic macro-economic management tools.
Prithvi Haldia, managing director of Prime Database, a company tracking corporate and primary market developments, is however of the view that primary markets usually follow the secondary market. IPOs have suffered mainly as the timing was not right.
Sabare International, a Karur-based home furnishings company, has taken ICICI Bank to court over a foreign exchange derivative contract. The company has requested the Karur civil court to declare the contract void. This is the second company to have gone into a legal dispute with ICICI Bank after the Chennai-based Sundaram Multi Pap, which had alleged "mis-selling of certain foreign exchange derivative contracts for speculative purposes".
Here are a few ways in which the young and the young at heart can throw a fabulous party within a budget.
The emerging markets strategic business unit of the country's largest IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services aims to touch the revenues of $2 billion by 2011-2012. The SBU targets regions such as Eastern Europe, West Asia, South Africa and Latin America. The company is also planning to have strategic development centres that will cater to these regions, beginning with Egypt & Russia. Emerging Markets offer great opportunity for TCS as IT sector there is growing at 8%.
US experts were pondering on the safety of food imported into US from developing countries. In lieu of this thought process, a new trend has emerged in America of preferring locally produced food. This trend is affecting Wal Mart and Whole Foods too. It has been observed that when food travels far, the local community are the least benefitted out of the exports. But the trend to grow more locally will seriously affect nations that depend largely on agricultural exports.
The big flops of the year -- Reliance Power and Future Capital Holdings -- are currently available at 25 per cent below their issue price. The other major post-listing losers include BGR Energy, Shriram EPC, J Kumar Infraprojects and KNR Constructions. Among the smaller issues, Precision Pipes and Profiles, Manaksia, and Porwal Auto Components are currently available at 50 per cent below their issue prices.
State should relax micro controlling of India's capital market to step up progress. India must have an open capital account to take its rightful place quickly in the world of financial service exports.
Indian apparel brands are looking at China as the new retail destination.
Today's Writing Products is entering retail of office supplies and stationery products with 500 retail outlets.
The Fed will not be able to halt this recession by merely easing rates, something it had successfully done in the past.
The French retailer, which has been talking to various Indian business houses for a possible partnership to roll out its wholesale operations in the cash- and-carry format, has also recruited around 50 people.
After developing bancassurance channels, which banks use to sell insurance products, the latest buzzword among insurance companies is "shopassurance" - selling insurance through supermarkets and retail chains.
Wal-Mart has a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises for a cash-and-carry(wholesale) venture in India. There are no regulatory restrictions on using the Wal-Mart brand in this business, but the company cannot have its brand name on front-end (retail level) stores that sell direct to consumers.
Swedish firm IKEA has rubbished India's retail success claims. It is of the opinion that India is not yet ready for big retailers.
The company has a wide-ranging client base spanning across consumer durables to retail groups like ITC, UB Group and WalMart. It is also in the process of designing various white goods for its clients in the consumer durable industry.
Bharti and Wal-Mart JV will be critical for the US giant to study the Indian scenario.
The Indian IT companies, which have been hitherto providing back office services (claims processing and others), are now planning to provide actuarial valuations. Genpact, one of the largest players in the property and casualty space has been in actuarial services since the last five years.
Bharti Enterprises, which had last year announced a $2.5-billion investment for its retail venture, is expected to announce its final plans, including that of opening of the first store, within the next two months.
To differentiate itself from Wal-Mart, Tesco, through its Fresh & Easy chain, has gone in for convenient neighbourhood stores which stock fresh foods, which is not a thrust area for Wal-Mart. But cost is one area where the two cannot avoid clashing, and this is where Tesco Hindustan Service Centre steps in.
A survey has revealed that Asia Pacific outsourcing market has grown substantially in 2007.
For executives who quit their cushy jobs to do a one-year post-graduate programme in management at reputed management schools, it could be a problem of plenty, with placement offers pouring in two months before their course comes to an end.
The Indian market is very competitive because you have existing foreign banks, private banks, new foreign banks and public sector banks, says Mike DeNoma, executive director, StanChart.
BMW is all set to challenge Merc's No.1 position in India's premium car segment.
A Nielson survey has revealed that Indian netizens are world's third biggest online shoppers, preferring to shop with their credit cards.
Gold pries surged to a record high at Rs 11,840 per 10 gram on Monday owing to brisk buying by major market players, who were enthused by firming global trend, and some investors' shifting focus from melting stock markets to the bullion mart. The market remained in bullish mood with gold remaining on record-setting spree as investors shifted a part of their funds from weakening stock markets to gold as the metal offers a safe haven for investments, traders said.
Asia's elderly dynamos aren't under as much pressure to step down as are their U.S. counterparts, but they'll eventually need successors.
Swedish behemoth Volvo has charted out an aggressive strategy to become a leader in the country's heavy commercial vehicle sector, following its alliance with the Delhi-based Eicher Motors.
Fitch, one of the largest design consultancies in the world that has designed stores of Wal-Mart, Target, Marks & Spencer, Best Buy and Tesco among others, is betting big on India's organised retail sector. Already in the country to serve clients such as Aditya Birla Retail, Reliance Retail, Tatas and so on, Fitch plans to treble the number of staff and open new offices in the country.
Indian jewellery firms are increasingly showing interest in the international market and are planning to venture into luxury lifestyle products.
India's retail industry, which is in the middle of rapid growth, has already scripted success stories fit to be the subject of a Bollywood film.
Indian commodity market can treble in size to an annual turnover of Rs 100 trillion by 2010, if the government allows investment by FIIs, banks and mutual funds as well as new products like options trading, top market officials believe.