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Hosting some 40 trade ministers from across the world for a two-day meeting here, India Thursday made a strong plea for an end to protectionism by some countries while it pushed for early resumption of multilateral trade talks and building a consensus on the way forward.

In his opening remarks at the mini-ministerial meeting of the 153-member World Trade Organisation (WTO), India’s Commerce Minister Anand Sharma asked the assembled dignitaries to remain conscious of the 2010 deadline to conclude the Doha Round.

Sharma said the trade ministers had no doubt reaffirmed their commitment to the current round of trade talks ever since these were launched at the Qatari capital in November 2001. Meetings have since been held in Washington, London, Bali, Paris, L’Aquila and Singapore.

“Together, we need to work in this spirit, go beyond yet another reaffirmation and work collectively to provide guidance for a clear road map of multilateral engagement in the months ahead, remaining conscious of the 2010 timeline.”

The minister recalled that in the previous meetings, the leaders were also united in their views that sustaining trade and investment flows was critical for the future prosperity of developed and developing economies alike.

“They recognised that one of the main threats to a revival of trade flows is the rising protectionist pressures and continued delay in concluding the Doha round. Therefore, strengthening the multilateral trading system by concluding the Doha round at the earliest is vital, is an imperative.”

Maintaining that the Delhi meeting constituted a microcosm of the entire WTO membership, “representing all shades of opinion and interests”, Sharma said this would be the first time since July 2008 that such a meeting was taking place to give a determined push to the multilateral process.

Asking ministers to discuss the process required to reach the goal and to build a consensus, Sharma said the meeting was aimed at providing guidance for a road map for the multilateral engagement.

At the same time, he said the two-day meeting was certainly not the appropriate forum to talk specific issues in various areas of the negotiations as not all 153 WTO members were represented. This was best left for Geneva, the headquarters of the global trade body.

But Sharma, nevertheless, called for the discussions to focus on the best ways to spark the multilateral negotiations and build a broad-based consensus so that they result in quick conclusion.

The commerce minister said he was aware that sharp differences remained, which needed to be resolved by officials, before the ministers can collectively outline the way forward and come up with fair solutions.

“In some quarters, it has been suggested that most issues have been settled and we are almost in end game,” he said, adding: “It would be apparent that there are still a few gaps and large number of unresolved issues.”

“In some instances, the architecture of a solution is not yet fully in sight. In others, there still remain negotiating gaps that need to be sufficiently narrowed before the ministers can collectively outline the way forward come up with fair solutions.”

Earlier, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy told a business conference that restrictive steps by some countries to protect their domestic markets in the wake of the global economic crisis had hurt international trade, which must remain open.

“Some countries have increased tariffs, instituted new non-tariff measures and initiated more anti-dumping actions,” Lamy told the conference organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

“True, none of them has triggered, so far, a tit-for-tat chain retaliation. But there is no denying they have had some trade-chilling effect,” said the director general, here at the Indian government’s invitation for talks on Doha Round.

“While I do not think we are in a situation where we need to cry wolf, we need to remain vigilant and ensure that WTO members remain open to one another.”

Moscow: A new deal between India and Russia on the funds for the refit of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov will be signed in mid-October, the head of the state technology corporation said Thursday.

“An additional agreement will be signed,” Sergei Chemezov, head of Rostekhnologii, told a news conference in Moscow.

Under the original $1.5 billion 2004 contract between Russia’s state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport and the Indian Navy, which includes delivery of MiG-29K Fulcrum carrier-based fighters, the work on the aircraft carrier was to have been completed in 2008.

However, Russia later claimed it had underestimated the scale and the cost of the modernisation, and asked for an additional $1.2 billion, which New Delhi said was “exorbitant”.

After long-running delays and disputes, India offered in February 2008 to raise the refit costs for the aircraft carrier, docked at the Sevmash shipyard in northern Russia for the past 12 years, by up to $600 million.

Russia said it was not satisfied with the proposed amount and the issue of the additional funding remains unresolved.

Talks on the additional funding agreement are currently underway. Russia has pledged to finish the Admiral Gorshkov’s overhaul as soon as possible and deliver it to India in 2012 if the additional $1.2 billion funding is provided by New Delhi.

According to Russian media, India has no alternative but to allocate the required funds, despite recent objections from the government’s accounting office, because the Indian Navy desperately needs to replace its INS Viraat, which, although currently operational, is now 50 years old.

After modernisation, the carrier will join the Indian Navy as INS Vikramaditya, and is expected to be seaworthy for 30 years.

Admiral Gorshkov is a modified Kiev class aircraft carrier, originally named Baku.

The ship was laid down in 1978 at the Nikolayev South shipyard in Ukraine, launched in 1982, and commissioned with the Soviet Navy in 1987.

It was renamed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In 1994, following a boiler room explosion, the Admiral Gorshkov sat in dock for a year for repairs. After a brief return to service in 1995, it was finally withdrawn from service in 1996 and put up for sale.

The ship’s displacement is 45,000 tonnes. It has a maximum speed of 32 knots and an endurance of 13,500 nautical miles (25,000 km) at a cruising speed of 18 knots.

New Delhi: India’s arms imports are expected to touch $30 billion by 2012 even as the domestic defence market is poised to grow to $700 million in five years, according to an industry lobby report.

The report submitted to the defence ministry by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) said: “India’s arms imports alone would rise to $30 billion by 2012.”

“The Defence Offset Facilitation Agency (DOFA) and the armed forces in consultation with India Inc should work out a comprehensive strategy to ensure that defence imports happen at extremely competitive rates,” Assocham President Sajjan Jindal said.

DOFA, under the Department of Defence Production, is a single window agency to implement the government’s defence offset policy.

Assocham has urged the government to allow India Inc to participate in defence deals as the domestic defence market would expand to over $700 million in four-five years.

According to the chamber, if the Indian economy grows at a steady rate of 7 percent, the defence spending would exceed 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in future.

“This could be used to finance additional capital outlays for modern equipment,” the Assocham report said.

Currently defence expenditure accounts for around 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). India has upped its defence expenditure by 34 percent to Rs.141,703 crore ($28 billion) for the fiscal 2009-10.

India is the world’s largest importer of defence articles with its armed forces buying over $6 billion worth of military hardware every year.

The paper also called for raising the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in the defence sector to 49 percent from the current 26 percent.

Higher FDI will help procurement of latest technologies as per provisions of the latest defence offset policy, Assocham said.

HCL Infosystems announced that it has bagged an order of over Rs. 40 crore from State Bank of India and its associated banks to deploy, maintain and service its advanced HCL-Hyosung Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) .

This is a ‘first of its kind’ order for HCL since its tieup with Korean major Nautilus Hyosung, to provide complete ATM solutions for banks across the country. Under the contract, HCL will deploy over 1,000 ATMs and cash dispensers across the country. The new ATMs will come with enhanced features like Braille enablement and support for multilingual content.

JV Ramamurthy, chief operating officer of HCL Infosystems, said, HCL has been focusing on providing latest banking & finance solutions for the Indian market. Given the potential of this sector, we are sure that with our ATM solutions we will be able to raise the bar for the banking & financial solutions in India, he said.

The HCL-Hyosung range of ATMs offers products that have been customized to the various requirements of the Indian market.

Going ahead, HCL plans to introduce cost-effective, rural ATMs, meant for deployment by banks in locations with relatively low transaction volumes and also help in the Financial Inclusion initiatives of banks.

New Delhi: The government Wednesday approved 21 foreign investment proposals amounting to Rs.84.9 crore ($17.78 million).

Prominent among the proposals approved by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) is one by Germany’s BASF, which plans to invest Rs.63 crore to manufacture specialty chemicals and trade in commoditised products.

Venture capitalist Ventureeast will invest Rs.9.61 crore in the capital markets, while two Japanese companies, Metal One Corp and Kusakabe will invest Rs.5.14 crore and Rs.5 crore respectively to set up manufacturing units.

Metal One Corp plans to set up a joint venture steel processing unit, and Kusakabe proposes to manufacture machinery for tube and pipe mills.

FIPB put on hold a decision on 14 proposals, with Unitech Wireless’s plea to increase its foreign shareholding to 74 percent being one. Seven proposals were rejected

Bangalore: The number of High Networth Individuals (HNIs) has decreased by 15 percent, falling to 8.6 million worldwide. This three year low in 2008 figures has occurred due to financial crunch, wiping out years of lucrative investment, and has shrunk the ranks of the very richest by a quarter, said a joint study by investment group Merrill Lynch and French consultancy Capgemini.

Also, other ranks of ultra- HNIs, whose investable assets are of $30 million (21 million Euros) or more, have fallen by 25 percent.

“The unprecedented declines wiped out two robust years of growth in 2006 and 2007, reducing both the HNI population and its wealth to below levels seen at the close of 2005,” the report said.

“World equity markets lost a decade of gains, and volatility reached record levels. Our 2008 findings show HNIs began to lose trust in the markets, regulators, and, in some cases, their financial advisory firms,” said the joint report by the companies.

“It was the most well-off people that were the most affected by this decline,” said Martina Weimert, Associate Director, Capgemini, France.

U.S., Japan and Germany constituted more than half of the world’s millionaires. China had the fourth biggest headcount of millionaires overtaking Britain.

The total wealth of people in the HNI category,- those with a million or more dollars’ worth of investable assets,- declined by a fifth to $32.8 trillion in 2008, down from $40.7 trillion in the previous year.

Educomp Solutions, an education company, in a joint venture (JV) with Pearson will support vocational learning in India.

Under the agreement, Pearson will acquire a 50 per cent stake for $ 17.5 million in Educomp’s existing vocational training business.

The technology-based teaching products will be targeted to schools, e-learning initiatives, public-private partnerships with 14 state governments in India, as well as its nascent businesses in school management.

India’s new government has identified not just employment but “employability” as a priority, and is committed to multiplying the supply and scope of appropriate skills training for its young and growing labour force, said the company in a press release.

The training will be backed by industry-standard certifications provided by Edexcel, Pearson’s market-leading qualifications and accreditation arm, according to a press release.

Wipro and Infosys are planning to start domestic BPO operations in smaller towns and rural areas to offer native language based capabilities and data entry services. Infosys is eyeing partnership with rural service providers, although Wipro offers technology support to some local service providers. The BPO sector has average billing rate for domestic clients, which is somewhere around $3-4 per hour for every employee, while it bills $8-12/hour to international clients. The rural shift may further generate job opportunities at a low costs.

“We are in consultation with few big companies for partnerships in rural areas,” said Murali Vullaganti, CEO of RuralShores, a startup company that gets technical support from Wipro.

According to Amitabh Chaudhry, CEO and MD of Infosys BPO, it makes sense for rural BPOs to look at partnerships as they may not be able to bag large contracts on their own. “The idea is the same as moving jobs from the US to India - to cash in on cheaper talent and office space,” said Chaudhry.

The tie-ups will be based on revenue-sharing between IT majors and locally based rural service providers. “Currently, there are about 10 rural BPO companies that include RuralShores, DesiCrew, Sai BPO and HOV Services. These centers do routine tasks like data entry, processing of utility bills, native-language help desk and e-mail response,” said Avinash Vashistha, CEO of Bangalore-based advisory firm Tholons. However, he feels that there are various limitations, including availability of skilled manpower, broadband connectivity and frequent power cutouts.

London: 10 Indian companies are listed among Financial Time’s top 500 global companies for 2009, in terms of market capitalization. The list was led by American energy giant ExxonMobil, followed by the oil major PetroChina and U.S. retailer Wal-Mart at the second and third positions respectively.

Reliance Industries is the only Indian company which has been listed among the top 100, taking the 75th place with a market capitalization of $47.25 billion. Last year, the company occupied the 80th position in the list. The companies were ranked by market capitalization, the greater the stock market value of a company, the higher it’s ranking. Market capitalization is the share price as on March 31, 2009 multiplied by the number of shares issued.

Other Indian firms featuring in the list are Oil & Natural Gas (ONGC) (120th rank), National Thermal Power (NTPC) (138), Bharti Airtel (188), Infosys (330), Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) (345), ITC (362), State Bank of India (372), Tata Consultancy Services (483) and Hindustan Unilever (495).