11.14.06
Posted in Uncategorized, India, investment, Information Technology at 12:53 am by maasmedia
BHARTI Airtel and Microsoft on Sunday announced a strategic partnership that will offer a range of software and services for SMBs in India. The partnership will begin by offering to Indian SMBs Microsoft Solutions for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration. It will also offer other hosted applications like CRM, Accounting, ERP, Unified communications and select Microsoft ISV applications. Both companies said they hoped to target over 6.5 lakh SMBs in India through this tie-up.
This service is predominantly aimed at companies with five or more employees, and is expected to be available in January 2007. These companies will now be able to enjoy the same experience as large enterprise customers without initial investments using a pay-as-you-go model, Bharti said in a statement.
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08.25.06
Posted in Review, India, investment, SEZ, Act, Government, Information Technology, Real Estate at 3:44 am by Mridul
SEZ Caps: Central and State governments stands against each other.
So the SEZ war is on between the Central and the State Governments. PRESSURE is building on the central government from states for removal of the ceiling on SEZs by the empowered group of ministers (eGoM). The EGoM, which is meeting on Wednesday to review the cap, has to take the crucial decision on whether to maintain the cap at the original level, increase it, or do away with it.
State Ministers, Sharad Pawar, TJayanidhi Maran, Naveen Patnaik have been writing to the Central Government for this issue. They have asked the Government that the SEZ proposals for Maharashtra cannot be accommodated if the ceiling is not removed leading to loss of potential investment. With the commerce department formally approving 46 new SEZ proposals on Tuesday, the limit of 150 imposed by the EGoM has been exhausted, which has brought the State Ministries to react against the EGoM. The Orissa CM pointed out that his state, which had become an important investment destination for minerals and metals, IT and IT-enabled services, would lose out if the SEZ cap was not removed. He said Orissa was not as fast as many other states in getting sanctions and there should be fair and equal opportunities for all states in the sanctioning process.
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08.22.06
Posted in Review, News, India, investment, SEZ, Exemptions, Act, Information Technology at 11:27 pm by Mridul
Newly proposed policies by the Ministry of Finance for Special Economic Zones (SEZ)
So the Finance Ministry has come up with THEIR approach for the Special Economic Zones (SEZ’s). The Ministry has the following points to say:
(1) The New Units that are going to come up in these Special Economic Zones will have to make fresh investments in the Plant and Machinery i.e. they cannot shift their existing machinery into the SEZ.
(2) The Companies in the Special Economic Zones cannot trade the goods via the DTAs (Domestic Tariff Areas).
(3) Trading activities can only be carried out by those companies that are importing the good and reexporting them.
Now, the basic idea behind the SEZ is to attract investments, create infrastructure and employment and generate economic activities.
Our Review: Well, these points have both advantages and disadvantages for the developer and the companies opting to put up units in the special economic zones. The original equipment manufacturer will defiantly be a gainer in these conditions, since there will be no traders sitting up in these zones, so the manufacturer will be benefited by the tax sops. The developer will have to allot the units to the OEM’s only. So the developers may feel a little pinch from the real estate point of view in their SEZ’s. Well, what we feel is that there is nothing much to worry about. Because our country has got a good number amount of manufacturers and exporters right !!!!
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08.21.06
Posted in News, investment, SEZ, Service Tax, Exemptions, Information Technology, Automobiles, Biotechnology, Pharma at 7:21 am by Mridul
Lupin planning SEZ in India for themselves
Lupin, a global market leader in API and formulations in the Pharma Industry, is planning an SEZ in Maharashtra. The initial investment would be Rs 200 crore, which may go up to anywhere between Rs 400 crore and Rs 500 crore. The company has been heard for hunting land in Maharashtra. When asked to a senior official, he said that the company is would like to set up a manufacturing plant inside the SEZ and would not sell space to others. “We propose to put up a manufacturing plant inside the SEZ, but, in no way, are we going to develop it for the use of others,” a source said.
Our Review: With more and more SEZ coming up in the India, India would definitely be the preferred commercial hub of the world. The incentives that the government is giving in the SEZ would attract the foreign investments also. With Service Sector also waiting to get the incentives, more and more service providers outside India would prefer Indian companies to provide services at low costs.
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Posted in India, investment, SEZ, Information Technology, Automobiles, Biotechnology at 6:56 am by Mridul
Mahindra & Mahindra investing Rs 1,500 cr in Maharashtra
Mahindra & Mahindra has shortlisted four states Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttranchal and Karnataka. The company is planning to invest Rs 1,500 crore in next 2-3 years, under its automobile, infrastructure and information technology business in Maharashtra.
The company has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understating) with the Government of Maharashtra State for extending its Nasik facility for manufacturing its multi purpose vehicle “Ingenio”, with an investment of Rs 550 crore. The project will just double the capacity of the company. Mahindra & Mahindra has planned two SEZ in Maharashtra, one near Pune which will bring in Rs 1000 crore and a Biotech SEZ in Thane will fetch Rs 150-200 crore. The total investment would be around investment to around 1500 crore. The automotive division of M&M is also in talks with Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur for developing a bio-diesel technolgy.
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08.20.06
Posted in airlines, Information Technology, Travel & Tourism at 7:24 am by Mridul
Spice Jet starting online hotel / reservation service
Spice Jet in collaboration with Yatra Online has launched a dedicated online web hotel reservation service for its customers. Initially, the reservation will be allowed for 13 cities only and will be extended to more cities soon. The service will offer rooms to passengers of any airline in about 100 hotels ranging from two to five star in 13 major cities. Spice Jet plans to boost its bottomline by increasing revenue from the anicillary services. Low-cost carriers in the US and Europe earn quite a chunk of their revenues from ancillary actvities like hotels, car rentals, credit cards, cancellations and re-bookings.
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