The measures are part of a package of nine concessions that were suggested by the commerce ministry around eight weeks ago and are awaiting cabinet approval.
Stanchart's plan for 100 rural branches stuck.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during his visit to the 13th Asean summit held at Singapore in November 2007, had indicated that India would take a flexible stand in the FTA talks.
Commerce ministry will issue notices to 57 formally approved SEZs. If the notices are not replied to, the approvals will stand cancelled.
"We will write to the Centre to scrap the eight proposals pending for approval while we will not notify the four (SEZs) that are already approved. About the rest three, we will take up the matter with the Centre to denotify them," said Chief Minister Digamber Kamat.
Gems and jewellery exports may have risen over 20 per cent so far this fiscal, but the rising rupee has cost 150,000 diamond workers their jobs in the last one year, the head of the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Sanjay Kothari, said.
Even as the engineering goods sector, which has the largest share in the country's export basket, registered an export growth of 22 per cent (dollar terms) in the April-July period of this year, a recent study has revealed that the volume of exports has gone down in majority of the products manufactured by the sector, leading to job losses.
They have realised that there is a lot of money to be made from selling ultra-luxury villas at holiday destinations in India. The target customers will be high net worth individuals, since each of these villas is being branded as "second homes" and will be sold for upwards of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million).
DLF, the country's largest realty firm, is eyeing the India franchise rights of ultra luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo. The Italian brand's original franchise partner, Sports Station India, has decided to exit the business and instead concentrate on premium brands such as Levi's and Dockers.
The proposed India-Thailand free trade agreement (FTA) will have to wait for some more time to become operational, as there has been no headway in negotiations on the India-Asean treaty on free trading of goods.
One of Lutyens' Delhi's much sought after addresses, 1 Prithviraj Road, is being put up for sale. Anil Thadani, the founder of private investment advisory firm Schroder Capital Partners, is the owner of the property, which is just under one acre. Sources told Business Standard that the property was being valued at Rs 60-80 crore (Rs 600-800 million).
Experts say this is a landmark deal that tackles a long-pending issue and will boost Russian investment in India's energy, minerals and defence sectors. The debt, accumulated over several years till April 15, 2007, is parked with the Reserve Bank of India. Explaining the agreement, Indian officials said a Russian company planning to invest in India would deposit rouble funds equivalent to their proposed investment with the Russian central bank.
DLF Ltd is acquiring the privately-held super luxury resorts and spa chain Singapore-based Amanresorts for around $250 million.
Bharti Airtel and United Breweries have expressed interest in acquiring, respectively, the Delhi and Bangalore or Mumbai teams in the impending Indian Premier League for Twenty20 cricket matches.
Some new sectors in which the commerce ministry has proposed to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) are credit information companies and commodity exchanges. The ministry is in favour of allowing up to 49 per cent FDI proposed in both these sectors. In proposing to open up the commodity sector, the ministry has said that FII investment be limited to 24 per cent, with a condition that a foreign investor cannot hold more than 10 per cent equity in the investing companies
A disclosure on its land reserves by the joint venture firm Emaar MGF has sparked off a debate on whether a real estate company with foreign investment can own agricultural land in India. Dubai-based Emaar holds around 41 per cent in the joint venture that is expected to raise Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) from an upcoming maiden public issue.
As foreign fund flows have lifted the rupee to record highs against the dollar, the commerce ministry has started telling exporters to prepare for the Indian currency rising further to 38 against the dollar by December. The strong rupee is already hurting India's exporters, with companies cutting jobs and scaling back expansions. A further appreciation may have even worse consequences for sectors like textile, infotech and automobile.
Analysts point out that exporters outside SEZs enjoy Cenvat credit against service tax paid on a host of services subscribed to while engaging in export-related activities. In addition, the department of revenue recently permitted service tax exemption on seven services used by exporters.
Real estate firm Parsvnath Developers' quest for a mobile licence seems to have hit a roadblock at the Department of Telecom (DoT). Parsvnath, which is one of the seven realty firms in the fray for mobile licences, hasn't mentioned the business of "telecommunications" in its memorandum of association (MoA).
Leading TV channels will see a blackout of spot advertising from midnight tonight after Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Airtel, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Reliance Communications, among others, directed their media-buying agencies not to book such advertisements on 16 news and entertainment channels, including NDTV, Network 18, Zee News, Star News, starting October 16.
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