- Exports to dip after X’mas
By YOGESH MEHENDALE
Mumbai
Nov. 20: Indian exports would further dip in the next year.
According to industry experts, exports have dec-lined even though Christmas is round the corner. Once the Christmas party is over exporters may face more severe consequences of the global slowdown.
The worst affected Indian export segments would be marine products, textile and gems and jewellery.
Mr Gul Kripalani, the vice-president of Seafood Exporters Association of India, said: "The Christmas consignments will reach the US and Europe as per schedule. Normally, marine product exporters fix the contracts with buyers for the next season during the first two weeks of December. But this time we do not know what quantity will be booked and at what price."
He further said: "Export of marine products had seen a dip of 25 per cent in October and after Christmas the demand may dip further."
Mr Rahul Mehta, the president of the Clothing Manufacturers Associat-ion of India, said: "Exp-orts to the US account for 30 per cent. But the US exports have already seen a considerable decline in the last few months and is expected to fall further by 25 to 30 per cent in near future."
Mr Sanjay Kothari, an expert on gems and jewellery, said: "Exports have been affected by about 10 per cent and prices are expected to go down by about 15 per cent. Due to Christmas the segment has not seen a major set back."
- Chennai firm eyes expansion
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
Chennai
Nov 20: Chennai-based pain relief products manufacturer, Amrutanjan Ltd, is planning to ramp up the share of the export markets in its portfolio by entering into the US and European market within the next two years.
The Rs 83 crore company, which derives less than three per cent of its total revenue from exports to the Gulf as well as the African countries is currently seeking mandatory approvals like US-FDA to find place in the retail shelves of Europe and America.
"We may be required to make certain variations in the content of products to secure these approvals. We are confident of getting the approvals within a year," said Mr Sambhu Prasad, managing director, Amrutanjan Ltd.
- Citigroup S. Asia gets new CEO
Mumbai, Nov. 20: The Citigroup on Thursday said its South Asia chief, Mr Sanjay Nayar has quit the bank and has been zreplaced by, Mr Mark Robinson. "Mr Robinson has been appointed CEO of Citigroup South Asia... Mr Robinson succeeds Mr Sanjay Nayar, who is leaving the firm to pursue other opportunities," Citigroup said in a statement.
Mr Robinson, it says, will operate from Mumbai and will look after Citigroup’s banking franchise in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Mr Sanjay Nayar is said to be joining Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co as its CEO and country head in the country.
Meanwhile, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he plans to increase his stake in Citigroup Inc to 5 per cent and expressed support of the bank's management.
Prince Alwaleed, who currently holds less than a 4 per cent stake, has been buying shares of Citi believing they are undervalued. —NW18
- Sensex tumbles
By Our Special Correspondent
Mumbai
Nov. 20: Global markets reeled under the domino effect starting from the US where stocks hit a six-year low on Wednesday on news of uncertainty over the bail out package for auto giants, deepening recession and Citigroup’s 53,000 job cuts.
The Asian markets plun-ged between three and six per cent followed by the Indian markets that were able to recover slightly from the day’s low because of short covering in the last half-hour. The markets rece-ived no support as even the European markets opened with a gap of over one per cent. The negligible dip in inflation figures that were announced pre-noon, had no impact on the markets. The Sensex closed 322.77 points down at 8,451.01, the lowest close for the year, and the Nifty closed 81.85 points at 2,553.15.
"The market will be like this because along with glo-bal weakness, there is pressure from bear hammering. The delivery volumes are low. In Reliance Industries, it was just 23 per cent. This could continue for the next three to four months."
Mr Harendra Kumar, head, research, Centrum Broking said: "It is important to know where your investment is. Many people think that Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have withdrawn their money from the blue chips. But our latest research suggests that when the FIIs were selling the stocks of companies contributing to the Sensex, the buyers were also FIIs. The composition of FIIs in those companies has remained the same as it was when the Sensex was at its peak."
- WTO gets 2-week deadline
Lima, Nov. 20: The US warned that a small two-week ‘window’ was left to revive the Doha Round of global trade talks as officials tried to devise a formula to tear down tariff barriers before the end of the year.
Asia-Pacific ministers were meeting in Lima ahead of a regional summit this week to break a deadlock on how to break down tariffs in key agriculture and manufacturing areas that could lead to a successful conclusion to talks.
In Geneva, senior officials were scheduled to meet from the weekend in a new push to find agreement since the collapse of the WTO’s last attempt to broker an accord in July.
The meetings take place after leaders of 20 developing and industrialised nati-ons made a strong call last week for a breakthrough on the ‘modalities’ to revive global trade talks launched in Doha in November 2001.
"It is going to be a very small window to see wheth-er the actions of trade ministers and senior officials in Geneva actually reflect the very strong language in the (Group of 20) leaders declaration," said the US trade representative, Ms Susan Schwab.
She spoke after attending a three-hour-long discussion among ministers of 21 eco-nomies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum "about how do we get this elusive breakthrough on Doha" ahead of a weekend leaders’ summit.
The trade ministers, who saw talks collapse in Geneva in July when India and the US clashed over protection of poor farmers, were prepared to return to the Swiss city to salvage the round if countries were willing to show a compromise, Mr Schwab, said. — AFP
- Global investors believe crisis will continue
New York, Nov. 20: With the credit crisis ravaging economies, four out of five investors feel the world will continue to be gripped by recession over the coming year, despite the injection of billions of dollars by various governments, says a survey.
The fund managers’ survey conducted by financial services provider Merrill Lynch in November showed that investors are still unconvinced that a slew of measures including monetary policy initiatives can help in combating the ‘global recession’.
"Four out of five investors believe that the world will continue to experience recession over the coming year. Policy makers have offered fiscal stimulus packages, liquidity and interest rate cuts, but investors are not yet ready to give their policies benefit of doubt," the report noted.
Further, investors are looking to American equities, where the outlook for corporate profits is the "most favourable". About 36 per cent of the people surveyed are overweight on US equities whereas asset allocators are underweight on European and Asian markets.
"Investors remain embedded in a defensive asset allocation mindset. Many ackn-owledge the global policy response seen in recent weeks, but the fear of deflation may be keeping them on the sidelines," said Mr Gary Baker, EMEA equity strategy (head), Merrill Lynch.
"This could start to look risky as the determination of government fiscal responses allied to further monetary easing starts to play through into sector preferences," Mr Baker added.
A total of 180 fund managers participated in the global survey carried out from November 7 to 13, managing $536 billion. Further, 149 managers participated in the regional surveys, managing $334 billion. Even though 85 per cent of those surveyed expect the Chinese economy to weaken in the next one year, the country is preferred by investors to any other Asian and emerging markets. "China is currently seen as the sole Asian beneficiary of policy stimulus and falling oil prices," chief emerging markets equity strategist at Merrill Lynch, Mr Michael Hartnett, said.
On Europe, as many as 89 per cent of investors anticipate the region to be in recession in the next 12 months while 58 per cent believe that the area’s monetary policy is "too restrictive, suggesting a focus on rapidly slowing growth, rather than inflation".
"Amid a determined search for growth, investors are apparently turning a blind eye to the risk of inflation ... In just five months, investors have performed a U-turn on the issue."
"At some point, the scale of monetary, credit and fiscal stimulus injected globally could put this view at risk," said Mr Karen Olney, lead European equities strategist at Merrill Lynch.
— PTI
- Centre awards 44 oil gas blocks, eyes $1.5bn
BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi
Nov 20: Intending to reduce country's dependence on imported fossil fuel, the government on Thursday decided to award 44 oil and gas exploration blocks, with the maximum going to ONGC and its partners and first timers BHP Billiton-GVK Power, attracting US $1.5 billion investments.
Of the 45 blocks that received bids in the seventh round of auction under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) did not award a deepwater block in Mumbai basin to Cairn Energy India as it found the bid low by the sole bidder, which is "detrimental to the government's future interest in terms of profit".
Announcing the decision, minister of state in the PMO, Mr Prithviraj Chauhan said the production sharing contracts (PSCs) for the 44 block would be signed in a month's time.
A total of 57 blocks were offered in the auction, but bids were received only for 45, with about $1.49 billion minimum investment committed, petroleum secretary, Mr R.S. Pandey said.
ONGC and partners bagged the maximum number of 20 oil and gas exploration blocks offered by India in its largest ever international bid round that closed on June 30.
First timers BHP Billiton and GVK Power emerged winners in seven deepsea blocks. Reliance Industries forged an alliance with British Petroleum Plc, but could manage only one KG basin block. Of the 57 areas offered in NELP-VII, seven deepsea, two shallow water and three on-land blocks did not receive any bid.
Mr Chauhan, meanwhile, said the CCEA has authorised petroleum ministry to incorporate provisions with legal vetting by department of legal affairs in the award letter for all nine small on-land blocks and five Mumbai basin deepwater blocks.
"It is expected that the award of the blocks under NELP- VII will result in more discoveries, further investments in development of oil fields leading to higher reserves accretion and eventually, production of oil and gas," Mr Chavan said.
- Our million-dollar babies
Buster
MOST OF Indian private sector managers who have joined the workforce after 9/11 had no idea about adversity till the global financial holocaust erupted.
They are what one would call ‘high tide managers’ who have never experienced an ebbing in their fortunes.
All management thinkers are agreed that it is adversity at an early state of one’s career that sharpens the skills of a potential manager but in a sustained bull economy where India grew at a high single digit for almost seven years, our younger managers were too softened to take tough calls.
As companies grope for unconventional solutions to the ongoing crisis, it’s the generally ignored salt and pepper Daddy’s Army that seems to have some of the answers while the ‘facebook generation’ appears to be compounding the problem.
Even in the US, the creative geniuses who devised exotic products in the equity research labs that once dotted Wall Street were primarily the younger lot of employees. When the tsunami broke, they had no idea how to stem the tide. To grow exponentially, knowledge-based companies have over depended on youth.
Business is not always about brilliance but almost always about common sense. Driven by pressures of hungry shareholders, far too many companies were hiring million dollar babies to churn out billion dollar ideas. The top dollar salaries that some of our IIM graduates were fetching were merely reflective of this corporate madness. The financial system has been wrecked by some of the supposedly ‘Newton like’ business graduates. If this is not a lesson for the likes of what once was Lehman Brothers, nothing will ever be. But Nomura does not seem to be learning from this disaster given the fantastic retention bonuses that they have promised to most of Lehman’s India staff!
Platinum handcuffs
Till Nomura formally acquired the Indian and global operations of Lehman Brothers in Worli and Powai respectively, Lehman employees were biting their nails and fingers off and their resumes were floating like froth on a swelling river. But all that changed within hours of the Nomura takeover due to the Japanese brokerage’s over valuation of the inherited staff. Anybody in Nomura that headhunters speak to now claims that he is a ‘critical resource’ and has been offered a 130 per cent retention bonus to stay in for a year. Somebody within Lehman India has obviously done a super sell job to the Japanese and in the process turned adversity into opportunity.
But whether such stories are sustainable even over the medium term is something that veteran human resources analysts will not bet their first dollar on.
Restricted raise
Taking a cue from the meltdown in the technology sector in India which is very closely aligned to the devastated banking and financial services industry, the few companies that are recruiting have capped salary raise expectations of potential candidates at 15 per cent over fixed compensation.
Till about six months back, candidates were loathe to consider new jobs if they paid less than 30 per cent more.
But now that their employers are restricting annual raises to single digits, one expects that the greed factor will be moderated downwards.
- ‘It’s a culture bias’
Nov. 20: At the Nasscom summit on IT women leadership, CEO of Yahoo India R&D Sharad Sharma suggested that an "active parent" can soon become a metaphor for a good leader. One such
parent, a leader and a woman, Kavita Rao, shares her experiences of working with the IT industry and mulls on the social enablers so crucial to succeed.
I am the global head of human resources for an IT services firm called Collabera. I am a single parent.
I entered the professional world 14 years ago. At that time in the professional world, there was a notion that women could only take up specific jobs and not long-term managerial roles — if the husband relocates, the wife would also have to move with him.
A decade ago, it was also not an ‘in’ thing to talk about gender inclusivity. Over the last few years, that has changed with employer branding becoming important as well due to demand. Gender inclusivity has become more of a requirement.
However, as a working parent, the challenges that I have faced are more personal. Managing a sick child, ensuring that he gets sufficient quality time with me, following through with the loads of homework that my child would come home with …
I recently moved to Bengaluru from the US. When my child felt sick abroad, I used to work from home. I have been lucky to have had and continue to work with managers who are very accommodating. However, work-life balance and other programs that promote gender inclusivity cannot be an excuse for non-performance. My work got done whether at 10 in the night or at 10 in the morning.
My company was equally accommodating when I had to travel. I took my son with me and they organised a babysitter while I was at work.
I was lucky but to succeed luck plays only two per cent role — you have to be lucky to have a supporting family. The rest of the 98 per cent is keeping your eyes open to opportunities, being able to recognise them, having the will to take on the challenges and being open to change.
Nevertheless, there is a cultural bias women have to cope with. And it comes from the external environment. Organisations today have matured — they have processes and policies in place. They can handle women who have children.
The problem is when she goes back home, another job awaits her and the woman usually has to manage it completely by herself. The amount of support she might get from the spouse may not be in line with her professional demands. So she has to make a choice between cooking a meal at home and the job, which may require travel, late hours, or long meetings to strategise.
To that extent, men have to be educated so that they start contributing at home like he would in his career. There are a lot of men who do that but it is still a slow process.
Educating both the sexes on how the world has changed as a whole is a role organizations can take up. If companies have policies and processes, they have to help all employees, male or female, become not only better professionals but better human beings.
As told to Goutam Das
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