To address the supply crunch, CII has suggested leveraging the existing excess capacity in the Indian industry; rolling back import duty hike to look for alternative sources of imports; expanding credit to manufacturing units with quick loan sanctions, and one-time emergency waiver of non-performing asset regulations for three months.
Exports from India to Pakistan increased by 95.63 per cent to $1.3 billion in 2006-07 against $690 million in the previous fiscal. Imports from Pakistan in the same year were worth $320 million, an 80 per cent increase over the year-ago figure of $180 million. Within the SAARC block, India has been the biggest trading partner of Pakistan in the last six years. According to analysts, India's share in Pakistan's total trade over the last six years stands at almost 50%
Growth in output of coal, cement and electricity slowed to 0.3%.
The commerce ministry has allowed the technical expert group headed by former Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Chief R A Mashelkar to correct the "technical inacuracies" in the patent law report and re-submit it within three months.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry has circulated a draft Cabinet note for inter-ministerial consultations.
The decision has come in the wake of allegations of plagiarism against the Mashelkar panel report.
The apex court also restrained e-commerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon from selling firecrackers which are beyond the permissible limit.
"We have examined the Bharti-Wal-Mart joint venture and everything is in conformity with the existing policy on FDI in retail," high-level sources in the commerce and industry ministry said.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to present the Budget for 2014-15 in July.
Government said on Wednesday it has extended by one year the in-principle approval to Reliance Industries' Maha Mumbai special economic zone but asked the promoters to cut the size of the zone to 5,000 hectares in line with the new rules.
