A large number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), remain confident that their business will grow over the coming year despite a slowing Indian economy and tight credit markets, says a survey by Kadence Research India.The research firm surveyed 300 SMEs across Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata that employed an average of 34 employees. The respondents were mostly their proprietors or managers.
“SMEs view the economic slowdown as a challenge, but one that they are ready for,” says Aman Makkar, managing director at Kadence Research India. SMEs account for almost 50% of industrial output in India and 42% of its exports.
One of the pain points for SMEs remains non-availability of funds from banks and financial institutions amid a global credit squeeze.
Around 45% of the respondents said they found it difficult or very difficult to access bank funding.Other hurdles to growth include weak marketing and distribution networks, taxes and duties and inflation of raw material costs.
Ispat Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of Ispat Industries Ltd, has plans to invest about Rs 1,000 crore in the current fiscal for producing bio-CNG from pressmud, a byproduct of sugarcane processing.Biogas is extracted from pressmud, and it is further chemically treated to produce bio-CNG. The gas produced can be used as a fuel for transportation and industrial applications.
Mr Shishir Tamotia, CEO, Ispat Energy, told Business Line that the company intends to work with 20 sugar mills in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh for producing bio-CNG. It has decided to invest Rs 35 crore in a bio-CNG facility for Warna Sugar Ltd, Maharashtra, he said.Mr Tamotia declined to share the details of the fund raising plan. Ispat Energy has signed a BOOT (build-own-operate-transfer) agreement with Warna for setting up the 11,000 cubic metres a day bio-CNG plant, which will be online by October 2009.
Leading global multiplex player Cinepolis is entering India. The Mexico-based firm, considered to be the fifth-largest cinema operator
globally, has initiated talks with real estate developers in the country for its multiplex operations. Once it starts operations, it would become the only international multiplex player in the domestic market.According to sources, Cinepolis India, which is a wholly- owned subsidiary of Cinepolis Mexico, has earmarked $350 million for its India operations.
Replying to ET’s e-mail questionnaire, Cinepolis India country manager Minal Saini said, “We are committed to India. Our initial target is to have presence in 40 cities. In the next 5-7 years, our goal is to have 500 screens.”
The exhibition chain is expected to position itself as a premium destination
. “We are looking at cities with the right combination of affluence, movie watching propensity and population.
Mexico would be the flavour at this year’s Bangalore IT.biz 2008 here from November 6 with the ICT event getting the backing of more than 100 companies including the likes of Infosys, Microsoft, Intel and IBM.As a partner country, Mexico would send a 50-strong delegation that would include the Minister of Economy, government officials and industry representatives, organisers said at a news conference.
In addition, there would be delegations from countries such Germany, Japan, Denmark and the UK who would take part in the three-day, eleventh edition of the event, a B2B platform for the IT, ITES and allied businesses for Indian as well as global companies.
Paper demand in India is increasing nearly 8% annually and supply has not been able to keep pace. Globally also paper capacity is shrinking. Wood
prices, stable for several years, are going up due to farmer revolts over plantation land in South America, exorbitant export duty on wood by Russia, warm weather in Scandinavia reducing forest harvest, illegal forest cutting in Indonesia and forest environmental issues in Canada, the US, Finland and Sweden. In India no greenfield wood based capacity has been added for more than two decades. No MNC or international paper maker has set up paper making capacity in India though other BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia and China — have attracted huge investments in this sector.Wood is a key raw material for paper making and India is a wood deficient nation. Landed cost of wood has risen sharply in last few years. World Bank has estimated India’s timber supply deficit as 39 million m3 (cubic meter) in 2006. (M3 is a unit for expressing wood quantity. Wood can also be expressed in MT but the problem is of moisture. In a standing tree moisture is almost 50% of total weight which evaporate slowly after cutting. M3 does not change by moisture content. One m3 is normally equivalent to 0.7 to 0.75 MT on standing tree basis.)
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[I]n recent weeks, the credit crunch has begun to affect plans near and dear to Lula’s heart, including a $250-billion Growth Acceleration Program in partnership with private industry. The plan was designed to make up for a 25-year deficit in public works construction since currency devaluations and hyperinflation plagued Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s.Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles, who last month said the nation had enough reserves to protect the currency, is taking a more cautious tone these days. He told reporters Friday the “situation is very, very serious. We should stop making jokes about it.”
The gravity became evident Friday, when the leader of a 160-member group of the nation’s largest contractors, known by its initials ABDIB, pleaded with Lula to establish a $5-billion emergency loan fund to provide short-term credit for infrastructure projects already in progress or about to begin construction.
“Credit is closing down or getting expensive,” said spokesman Jose Casadei of ABDIB. He added that $40 billion in hydroelectric projects, some situated in the Amazon, were among those in jeopardy.
Last week, Brazil announced it was putting off an auction for building the $3.5-billion Rio Madeira high-tension power line stretching from the Amazon basin to the outskirts of Sao Paulo. State-controlled oil company Petrobras indicated it may delay a deadline for proposals from companies interested in exploring a promising offshore field called Pre-salt, a project that could put Brazil in the major league of oil exporters.
Top South American officials holding an emergency meeting to discuss the world economic crisis decided Monday that protectionist policies adopted throughout the region in past decades would be a serious mistake.Foreign and finance ministers from Mercosur economic bloc nations also said they would try to forge a coordinated macroeconomic response to buffer South America from the crisis, which has battered the region’s stocks and currencies as investors flee emerging markets.
Officials agreed that protectionist economic policies frequently adopted by individual South American nations in decades past would hurt more than they would help, Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley said.
“The worst thing that could happen would be to use this crisis as an excuse to return to the policies we had in the 1960s, to build an old-style protectionism that generates barriers in our economies and only accentuates the crisis,” he told reporters.
The central government is planning to remove the incentive cap in wind energy which is currently restricted to projects up to 49mw.The government decision is to encourage more foreign investors to invest in various wind energy projects, according to a senior representative from the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE).
MNRE is also planning to encourage more green buildings across the country, for which the department is even planning to give financial assistance for green building projects.
The two day seminar was organised by Solar Energy Society of India (SESI) in association with Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, IREDA, Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency and Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industries (MCCI).
Green construction is getting popular by the day. Today, green buildings covering 67 million sq ft are being constructed all over the country, up from the 20,000 sq ft in 2003, according to the CII-Godrej Green Building Council, Hyderabad. The figure is expected to be one billion sq ft by 2014.Developed by the US Green Building Council, LEED or the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a green building rating system, which has standards for environmentally sustainable construction.
Green buildings are costlier than conventional buildings because builders typically factors in the extra costs incurred in procuring eco-friendly material, glazed glass, twin flow toilets, solar paneling etc. In the longer run, green buildings prove cheaper, though. Explains Jain, “Green buildings are 3-20% costlier to construct, but it gets paid back in 3-7 years.”
While every 20,000 sq ft of a centrally air-conditioned shopping mall or commercial complex consumes about 150-160 units of power per hour, green buildings consume about 30-50% less energy and 30-70% less water with the help of eco-friendly material, better design and maintenance and waste disposal, resulting in reduction of operating costs for such buildings.
Green buildings also helpful in the fight against climate change. Says Varun Pahwa, vice-president, business development, Dessicant Rotors International, “Buildings are energy-guzzlers and account for 30-40% of global energy use. It means improving energy efficiency itself can help reduce global warming.”
Even as economists and government officials are busy revising India’s GDP growth estimates downwards, demand slowdown, it appears, is yet to hit India Inc.An ET study of early birds — companies who have announced their financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2008 — shows that aggregate net sales for 175 firms have grown by a healthy 32%, which is marginally more than the 31% topline growth in Q2 FY08. Sales growth in the past five quarters is in the 27-34% range.
