20th October - BUSINESS LINE

Naina singh
Neha Yadav
Neeraj Chopra
Group- 14 (Section - F)

Microfinance Institutions Network(MFIN) are ready to cut lending rates provided banks lower interest
MFIN's CEO Mr Alok Prasad said that 12-13% interest on loans taken from banks is too costly for them & its a challenge for them to bring it down. He emphasize that there should be a partnership approach for promoting access to credit to people & it can be achieved if MFIs can cut lending rates from 24-27% to 23-24% & they are ready for it provided banks bring down their lending rate to 10-11%.
MFI argued that since their employees have to go door to doorin rural areas to reach to the customers therefore their average operating costs are high. So if one add loan loss of 1-2% & reasonable rate of return then the interest rates comes out to be 25% per year.
Centre is planning to give Rs 10000 cr to oil marketing firms as apart of fuel losses
The three companies IndianOil, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation have run up losses of around Rs 31000 crore in the April- September period of which a third(i.e 10330 crores) will be borne by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation with some help from Oil India & GAIL. Centre is planning to give Rs 10000 crore as an adhoc package.
This means that these three companies would have to take the hit for the balance of some Rs 10000 crores.
GAIL loses Kakinada,Bhilwada pipeline project to GSPC
GAIL has lost the bid to built 1545 Km Kakinada-Bijapur-Bhilwada gas pipeline to a consortium of public sector companies led by the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation(GSPC)
Nippon Steel to make auto pipes at Rajasthan plant
Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel announced that they will invest Rs 164 crores in an automotive steel pipe plant in Rajasthan.They selected Neemrana Industrial Park for it and production is expected to start by 2012. Investment for this project will be routed throgh Siam Nippon Steel Pipe Co, Nippon Steel's Thai unit.
This is the third time in last year that Japanese steelmaker has targeted the Indian auto market. JFE recently picked up a 14.98% stake in JSW to produce auto-grade steel while Sumitomo metals signed in a deal with Bhushan Steel.
Cyprus realty major Leptos woos Indian investments
Leptos Group a local property developer with an estimated net worth of 1.5 billion euros would like to have participation from India in the implimentation of Neopolis Smart EcoCity. It is a 2 billion euro project and funding for the first phase of it has already been finalised.
Basel Committee announces progress in reforms programme
The Basel committee on Banking supervision met in Seoul on Tuesday to finalise its reforms programme for ensuring systematic stability of the global financial architecture.
Basel committee and president of Neitherlands Bank, Mr Nout Wellink said that the committee will address the identified weaknesses of the pre-crisis banking sector, thus delivering on G-20 mandate given at the Pittsburg summit to develop a more resilient banking sector.
The firm specific and broader systemic risks have been reffered to as “BASEL III”.
Their agenda includes higher quality of capital to ensure that banks can better absorb the types of losses, better coverage of risk,internationally harmonised leverage ratio to constrain excessive risk taking.
Sesa Goa pins hopes on Court ruling on iron ore export ban
Sesa Goa a Vedanta Group company expects the Karnataka High Court to give its verdict on the State Government ban on iron ore exports by the end of this month.The Court has been hearing abatch of petitions field by nine mining companies led by Sesa Goa. Restrictions on transportation of ore imposed by Goa Government and issue of overloading trucks have also hit the company.