Peter Linford, Austrade’s Senior Trade Commissioner for South Asia

Reflecting the growing upsurge of interest in Australia on doing business with India and South Asia in general, over 1200 companies and individual entrepreneurs participated the highly successful Austrade seminars on “Winning Business in India and South Asia” held in major cities in Australia for March 15 to April 01, 2009. With the global financial crisis shutting the doors on established markets like Japan, Europe and USA, more and more Australian companies are seeking new destinations like India.

“The market is already showing that Australian companies that are going to India and South Asia ar achieving more success than in past years” said, Peter Linford, Austrade’s Senior Trade Commissioner for South Asia, based in New Delhi and now in Australia to lead the seminars. Mr. Linford cited the example of Cartridge World, the Australian Cartridge re-filling and retailing chain, which has achieved huge marketing success in India. Catridge World established its first store in India two years ago and in the next week plans to open its 50th franchise.

A TIDCO team led by its Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. S. Ramasundaram I.A.S., participated in the Seminars and made presentations on investment opportunities in the State of Tamil Nadu.

Source: Indo-Australian Business Talk

After a long spell of gloom, things have started looking up for exporters of ready-made garments. Chasing away months of consistent decline, Indian apparel exports grew 5 per cent in January 2009 over the same month last year. On a month-to-month basis, it is an increase of 11 per cent at $972 million, compared with $871 million in December 2008, according to the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC).

Competitive pricing, reduction in bank rates and a depreciating rupee have helped garment exporters survive the recession and compete with countries like Bangladesh, which was able to pip India in garment exports to the US due to its lower production costs.

For India, the US, which imports $70 billion worth of textile products every year, is the largest market, accounting for nearly a fourth of ready-made garments exported. The recent announcement of providing a 2 per cent duty credit scrip benefit to garment exporters to the US and Europe, which would become effective from April 1, 2009, has also lifted the spirits of exporters. The scrip, which is a cash substitute, can be used by exporters to pay for duties on imported inputs. “Things are not as grim as we were fearing,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the Clothing Manufacturing Association of India. Exporters have started offering competitive prices and discounts to buyers matching those offered by Bangladesh, Vietnam and Combodia. According to industry officials, Indian exporters have slashed prices by 11-12 per cent.

“In order to survive and retain customers, exporters have to slash prices,” said Praveen Nayyar, managing director of Delhi-based Dimple Creations. “The main point is that there is still requirement for goods made here,” added Nayyar.

“It is a good news for the entire textile industry if the garment sector does well. This will ultimately help the upstream industry that includes yarn and fabric,” said DK Nair, secretary general of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI). However, despite showing an increase in growth, India is yet to regain its position among the top five suppliers in the US market, after slipping to the sixth position, behind Bangladesh, in August 2008. Bangladesh exported garments worth $3,441.64 million to the US in the January-December 2008 period, while India exported garments worth $3,169.93 million in the same period.

Seeing the contraction in demand, while exporters have started exploring other markets like West Asia, Africa, Australia and Japan, others have started looking homewards. “There is a huge market in India also, which can be tapped by exporters,” said Mehta, whose company Creative Group produces private labels for big retailers along with its own brands for the Indian market.
However, according to Nayyar, the domestic market is not yet ready and it would take some time before exporters can tap it. According to AEPC estimates, exports of ready-made garments from India are likely to fall 24 per cent short of the $11.62-billion target for the current fiscal.

Source: Business Standard

The West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation(WBTDC) along with the state tourism department is undertaking a mega river tourism project with the river 'Ganga' as the central theme. The 'Ganga river cruise circuit project' involves beautifying and developing around 12 heritage ghats along the river Ganga--Belur, Dakhineswar, Barrackpore, Serampore, Chandannagar, Chinsura, Nabadwip, Mayapur, Plassey, Baharampur, Murshidabad and Azimganj-Baranagar-- at an approximate investment of Rs 20 crore sanctioned by central government under the Central Financial Assistance Scheme, 2008-09.

The other part of the project will have cruises plying from Farakka to the Bay of Bengal, to be executed under the Public Private Partnership(PPP) model at an investment of Rs 125 crore, with a central government assistance of Rs 33 crore. An expression of interest(EOI) for the purpose has already been floated. Around three parties have shown interest, Vivada Inland Waterways being one of the three. Speaking on the 'foundation stone laying ceremony' of the Rs 20 crore Ganga river cruise circuit, Manabendra Mukherjee, minister of toursim and small and medium enterprises and textiles, government of West Bengal, said, "We will be developing the river Ganga, which has a historical significance and has a great potential.This is one of the largests projects taken up by our department, wherein 12 ghats around this sacred river will be developed and beautified by providing food kiosks, drinking water fountain, approach road and fencing, amongst other things."

This apart, the tourism department would also develop areas around the historical Plassey at an investment of Rs 2.38 crore sanctioned by the central government, a Rs 5 crore project to develop Sajnekhali into a better tourism destination at Sunderbans and a Rs 6.2 crore project to develop areas around Bakkhali and Gangasagar, informed TVN Rao, managing director of WBTDC. Proposals for further development of Barrackpore and Murshidabad as tourism destinations, were still pending with the government of India, admitted Rao.

Speaking on the occasion, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, governor of West Bengal highlighted that 'environment friendly projects' were very significant and the state tourism department should ensure that all these projects were least polluting. "The vessels which will be plying on the river should be non-diesel and non-polluting and it should involve least noise pollution factors.Music, if at all in the vessels, should not disturb the natural silence of the journey.This project should be clean and efficient and was meant for environment and heritage conscious tourists", said Gandhi.

Source: Business Standard