Faced by criticism on its special economic zone policy, the government is preparing guidelines for acquisition of land from farmers for setting up SEZs.
Business conglomerate Adani Group's chairman Gautam Adani is now the world's second-richest person after overtaking Louis Vuitton's Bernard Arnault, according to Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires List. At the time of writing this report, Gautam Adani's net worth was $153.9 billion, compared to Arnault's net worth of $153.7 billion. Adani is now just behind business magnate Elon Musk, according to Forbes' data.
Minister of Commerce and Industry Arun Jaitley exhorted US businessmen to focus their attention on India, as it had an attractive foreign direct investment regime.\n\n\n\n
Expressing serious concerns over the DTC Bill, SEZ entrepreneurs on Tuesday said the proposed tax provisions would hit employment and drive away investors from the special economic zones.
In the March quarter analysts' presentation, the company had said it was targeting to raise a total of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) from non-core asset sales in the medium term.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd climbed eight spots to the 45th rank, the highest for an Indian company on Forbes' latest Global 2000 list of public companies worldwide.
IT companies would be entitled to the same tax benefits as SEZ developers.
The Kerala government has not excluded the industrial units situated in special economic zones from labour laws, State labour minister P K Gurudasan told the Assembly on Thursday. He was replying to a calling attention motion on the difficulties experienced by the employees of new generation banks, IT sector and private insurance and financial institutions functioning in the state due to non-compliance of labour laws by the respective units.
While company executives refused to divulge further details, industry sources said that Reliance has earmarked a huge area in the SEZ for the project.
The government is preparing a draft policy for special investment regions that would be spread over an area of hundreds of kilometres and offer investors all the infrastructure for setting up manufacturing units.
The Board of approval in the commerce ministry took these decisions along with approving two fresh proposals of Shyam Steel Industries and Limitless Properties in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, respectively. The BoA also ratified extension of time to 23 developers, including Satyam Computer Services, for implementing tax-free enclaves in the wake of economic slowdown.
Flipkart on Monday said it has entered into a commercial partnership with the Adani group to strengthen logistics and data centre capabilities of the Walmart-owned company and create about 2,500 direct jobs.
Merchandise exports from 143 operational SEZs totalled Rs 72,255 crore (Rs 722.55 billion) in the April-June period.
The government said on Wednesday more than 200 applications for setting up special economic zones are pending with it.
The ruling came after Maha Mumbai SEZ Sangharsh Samiti, a local organisation opposing the SEZ, on Friday informed the high court that a public interest litigation relating to the project is pending before the Supreme Court.
Nandigram remained in headlines throughout the year despite the West Bengal government cancelling the SEZ project of Indonesia's Salem Group in January following violence and political pressure on Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Demand for special economic zones (SEZs) appears to be reviving even as realty developers are shying away from developing these tax-free enclaves due to liquidity crunch, according to experts who are tracking SEZs.
Plans for SEZ, logistics and coffee chain, among other segments
Nasdaq-listed Infosys has said it was the failure of the state government in fulfilling the agreed conditions that led to the delay in executing its 448-acre IT Special Economic Zone project in Hyderabad.
Adani says size of the balance sheet of the company will double after the acquisition.
The BoA also allowed three developers, including Unitech Infopark, to surrender their SEZs, he said, adding they would have to pay back the tax concessions availed while executing the projects and other pending dues.
West Bengal is having a rerun of the Nano episode, but this time it doesn't want the lead actors to exit the stage prematurely. The government is ready for whatever manoeuvres it takes to retain Infosys and Wipro projects in the state.
Last week, the 20-hectare zone had got embroiled in a controversy amid reports that the state government was taking back the land. This was after allegations that the land was allotted in an unfair manner. But Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy said the government would not cancel the allocation as the company was "sound."
Reliance Communications has received approvals from Maharashtra and MIDC for its proposed 45-acre special economic zone.
When asked what the Infosys stand will be, Binod Hampapur, senior vice-president and global head of commercial and corporate relations at Infosys, said that the company will wait for the letter before the company makes any comment.
IT, IT-hardware, petroleum, engineering, leather and garments are the leading exports from the SEZs.
It is also stipulated that these units cannot under any circumstances source items locally for export purpose.
Reliance Petroleum, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, India's largest company by market capitalisation, today commissioned its second refinery in a special economic zone (SEZ) at Jamnagar, adjacent to its existing facility, in Gujarat that will add 20 per cent to India's total crude oil refining capacity.
Finance Minister has proposed to levy MAT of 18.5 per cent on the book profits of Special Economic Zone developers and units.
What is really at stake is the future of the local economy and its place in the larger picture.
RPL, a unit of Reliance Industries, had sought nod to export the entire liquefied petroleum gas production in the six months to fully commissioning its 580,000-barrels per day refinery in the Jamnagar special economic zone. RPL, in which US energy major Chevron Corp has 5 per cent stake, is likely to start producing fuel from the unit being set up adjacent to parent firm's existing 660,000 bpd refinery at Jamnagar in the next few weeks.
Excise duty on formulations has increased from 4 per cent to 5 per cent.
Nasscom president Kiran Karnik on Wednesday suggested the government should allow establishment of private higher and technical educational institutions on the lines special economic zones to provide quality education in the country.
The government is expected to end the benefits under Section 10A and 10B of the Income Tax Act.
IT major Wipro has proposed to establish a software economic zone in Kolkata, according to a top government official.
Mahindra Satyam has approached the Commerce Ministry for more time to develop the three IT Special Economic Zones in Andhra Pradesh as it has decided to go slow on its expansion plans due to the slowdown.
Dr Reddy's Laboratories is setting up two special economic zones -- one each at Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
