 What's New
ELCINA Electronic Industries Association of India (Formerly Electronic Component Industries Association) was established in 1967 when India's Electronic industry was still in its infancy. ELCINA has always remained committed to the promotion of electronics manufacturing culture in the country focusing on components-the building blocks of electronics industry. |
- General
- Trade Pact with EU, Japan, Malaysia likely in a year : India would be able to further augment its trade in next one year with the conclusion of its proposed market liberalizing agreements with the EU, Japan and Malaysia, says the Commerce & Industry Minister Mr. Anand Sharma.
While announcing the annual foreign trade policy (FTP) the Minister said, "I am optimistic that we shall be able to arrive at an ambitious and balanced outcome in these pacts (with the EU, Japan and Malaysia) over the next one year."
India is in talks for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Malaysia and Japan and a broad based trade and investment pact with the EU.
These three economies are significant as India's trade with them accounted for about $93 billion in 2009-10. The country's total exports in the last fiscal were $178.6 billion.
In 2009, India signed a comprehensive trade pact with South Korea and the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean). While tariff liberalization with South Africa has come into effect, only four Asean members-Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam-have operationalised the agreement.
"We are convinced that our enhanced and active engagement in international trade will contribute significantly towards realizing our aspiration to become a dominant economic player," the Minister said. Besides, India is also engaged in talks with Asean members to widen its free trade agreement to include services and investments. Several rounds of talks have already taken place.
- Finance for MSMEs : It is as important as getting for a micro and small enterprise is to understand the financial intricacies. This is one of the critical inputs for the promotion and development of the micro and small enterprises. Finance to the MSMEs is part of the priority sector lending policy of the banks. For the public and private sector banks, 40 per cent of the net bank credit (NBC) is earmarked for the priority sector. For the foreign banks, however, 32 per cent of the NBC is earmarked for the priority sector, of which 10 per cent is meant for the MSE sector. Any shortfall in such lending has to be deposited in the Small Enterprise Development Fund (SEDF) to be set up by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
- ISRO plans to double launches, pitches for wider industry role : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking for greater industry role as it plans to double the number of satellite launches annually.
"Industry should become a risk-sharing partner," says ISRO chairman Mr. K Radhakrishnan. "Industry and the Indian Space Agency should work together on new technology because the gestation period is large, so the seeds should be sown now" he addd.
- Cabinet improves Rs. 1,877-cr plan of India Post : The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved an Rs. 1,877-crore information technology modernization project of the Department of Posts.
The postal Department would be floating tenders for procurement of hardware and development of software. Pilots will be held in rural and urban post offices and the final roll out will be completed by September 2012.
Creating an IT infrastructure, including establishment of data centre, networking of the post offices, integrated and modular software for all operations of the postal department have also been approved. The project will be implemented over a three-year period starting this financial year.
- Economy set to grow 8.9%-9.4%
While economists believe that the overall economic growth for fiscal 2010-11 is expected to be upwards of 8.5%, they attribute the likely high growth in Q1 to industrial sector, particularly manufacturing. Industrial output in the April-June quarter of 2010-11 was 11.6%
- Commerce min sets up Rs 500-crore contingency fund for exporters
There could be some good news for exporters who felt the Foreign Trade Policy unveiledlastMondaywasnot enough to compensate for the dwindling merchandise exports to overseas markets.A ccording to a top commerce ministry official, the government has set aside a contingency fund of approximately Rs 400-500 crore that will be doled out to exporters in the beginning of the next calendar year once the sectoral reviews are completed in December. According to the Commerce and Industry Minister "there are still grey areas that we need to address like the engineering sector, textiles, handicrafts and handlooms.
- Profit-linked deductions for SEZs developed before FY12
In line with the government's plan to gradually put an end to profit-linked deductions on the taxable income, the new Direct Tax Code has proposed to grandfather the benefit now allowed to both special economic zone (SEZ) developers and units in these zones.
The code has introduced cutoff dates for SEZ developers and units in these zones for availing the unexpired portion of the profit-linked deductions. A s per the DTC Bill, developers will be allowed profit-linked deductions for all SEZs notified on or before March 31, 2012. Units in SEZs that will commence commercial operations by March 31,2014toowillbe allowed profit-linked deductions.
- Information Technology
- NEC to consider production facility in India : Japan-based IT company NEC Corporation will consider setting production facilities in India, if the opportunity arises. This has been announced by its President Mr. Nobuhiro Endo. "India is one of the most important markets for NEC in this region," Mr. Endo said, pointing out that his group had established a strong marketing base in the Indian market.
- Slimmest USB Flash Drive from Moser Baer : Data storage company Moser Baer has launched what it claims to be the slimmest USB flash Drive, weighing 1.3 grams. The tiny advanced chip on-board drive comes in various memory capacities up to 8GB. The company claims that the drive stores data in a format that is one-third the size of a typical USB flash drive. A 4GB drive is priced at Rs.750 and 8GB at Rs. 1,150.
- BlackBerry buys California app store : BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has Acquired California-based Cellmania, which delivers back-end infrastructure for application stores. Cellmania has the world's largest repository of mobile content of over 200,000 items in 55 languages in more than 100 countries. Airtel, AT&T, Telstra and Virgin Mobile are its major customers.
- HCL joins Texas Elite Design network : HCL Technologies has become a member of Texas Instruments (TI) Elite Design House program, a group of companies that offer system-level design services. HCl will leverage this partnership in building product components and solution accelerators for three major segments - Aerospace, Medical Electronics and Consumer Electronics.
- IT companies are doing brisk business in China
They are doing this by servicing multinational clients which have expanded operations in China and need support. Homegrown tech majors are also using China as a service delivery location for their customers in Far East such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan and even the US. Tapping the domestic Chinese market which has robust demand for services and solutions is equally high on the agenda for Indian IT majors.
- Telecom
- Vodafone to sell China Mobile stake
British mobile phone giant Vodafone is to sell its shares in China Mobile to raise $6.2 billion. The deal with China Telecom, the world's biggest telecom operator, is expected to be the first in a series of planned sell-offs Vodafone will make in the coming months, according to the Sunday Times .
- RIM offers BlackBerry fix, wins two-month breather
In a major decision, the home ministry decided that all Internet-based services like Google, Skype, virtual private network operators would have to ensure that their traffic passes through servers located in India. This way the government would be able to access all traffic which flows through these services.
Meanwhile, Research in Motion (RIM) got a two-month breather with the ministry agreeing to conduct trial runs during the period on a solution it provided to access data on a real-time basis.
The announcement came after home secretary GK Pillai convened a meeting with representatives of security agencies and DoT
- Nokia server in India by November 5
Nokia will set up its servers in India by November 5 to enable the government to monitor its email and enterprise services, said D Shivakumar, V-P & MD, Nokia India.
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