July 29 (Reuters) – Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said on Thursday Manila was looking at a structure where the government will take on any tax liabilities related to its planned global peso bond issue this year. (Reporting by Karen Lema)
India fin secy says inflation to ease to 6 pct by Dec
July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment
July 5 (Reuters) – India’s headline inflation will ease to around 6 percent by December, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said on Monday.
India’s central bank on Friday raised interest rates earlier than expected, ahead of its July 27 policy review, days after the government freed up fuel prices. Analysts expect another 25-basis points hike on July 27, on concerns over inflation hovering above 10 percent.
The central bank projects headline inflation INWPI=ECI, which hit 10.16 percent in May, to fall to 5.5 percent at end-March 2011.
(Reporting by C.J. Kuncheria)
India May inflation to be in same range as April-finsec
June 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
June 14 (Reuters) – India’s May headline inflation should be in the same range as April, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla told Reuters on Monday.
The median forecast for May inflation in a Reuters poll is 9.56 percent, which compares with April’s reading of 9.59 percent. [ID:nSGE65A09I]
The data is due at 0630 GMT. (Reporting by Abhijit Neogy)
IADB governors commit to Haiti aid, fresh capital
March 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The governing board of the Inter-American Development Bank agreed on Monday to raise $70 billion in new capital and give $479 million in post-earthquake debt forgiveness and other relief to Haiti.
The oldest and largest regional development bank needs more capital to respond to the Haiti emergency and refill coffers depleted by its response to the recent economic crisis, officials said.
The new funds will allow the IADB to offer $12 billion in development funds a year.
The devastating 7-magnitude Jan. 12 quake in Haiti shattered many parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and may have killed up to 300,000 people.
Besides the costs of rebuilding, Haiti faces immediate funding challenges as its fiscal shortfall this year could be as large as $350 million, a senior official from the International Monetary Fund said.
Officials agreed to erase $447 million worth of Haiti debt and give $32 million in other relief.
“We are sure that the debt relief for Haiti with the bank will reduce the fiscal pressures and avoid a debt problem in the coming years,” Mexican Finance Secretary Ernesto Cordero said at an opening event for the meeting.
The IADB lends money and provides grants to its borrowing members in the Caribbean and Latin America. The bank has a strong credit rating because its work is underwritten by advanced economies like the United States and China.
Under the capital plan, the banks’ members will contribute 2.5 percent of the required cash and the rest will come from fresh debt issuance.
(Reporting by Patrick Rucker and Tomas Sarmiento; editing by Eric Walsh)
New look for Asia’s largest rose garden
July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Chandigarh, July 9 (IANS) The Zakir Hussain Rose Garden here, which the union territory administration says is Asia’s largest rose garden, will soon have a new, refurbished look with new varieties of flowers and more amenities to attract tourists, officials said.
The Chandigarh administration has prepared an exhaustive roadmap to upgrade the garden, to attract more foreign and domestic tourists.
“The rose garden is the prime tourist spot for the city and there is need to renovate it. Our new plan focuses on breaking the old-fashioned and stereotype planning through additions of new varieties of exotic flowers, creating a back-up system and landscaping, combined with recreational aspects,” Chandigarh Finance Secretary Sanjay Kumar said here Thursday.
“Innovative ideas would be used to arouse curiosity amongst the residents and visitors. New concept sections of roses would be added, which would be named after great world personalities and countries,” he said, adding efforts were on to develop a section called “Pride of India” with exclusive collection of roses evolved in India.
The rose garden, spread over 30 acres, has nearly 2,000 varieties of roses and an assortment of medicinal plants.
The administration also aims to have a back-up system, as for the major part of the year, no roses flower in the garden, and therefore, a separate rose varieties bank would be set up.
“The ministry of tourism has already sanctioned a grant of Rs. 26.9 million (Rs. 2.69 crore) for Rose Garden which would be utilised for purchasing of new rose varieties, development of rose nursery, a library and a tourist information centre. A huge chunk of this grant will be spent to install fountains and for better illumination of the garden for the night tourism dimensions,” Sanjay Kumar said.
Pranab Mukherjee assumes charge as Finance Minister
May 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment
New Delhi, May 25 (ANI); Pranab Mukherjee on Monday assumed his charge as the new Finance Minister.
Mukherjee was welcomed by the Finance Secretary, Revenue Secretary, Expenditure Secretary, Disinvestment Secretary, CEA, Chairman, CBDT and Chairman, CBEC.
Immediately after assuming charge, Mukherjee had a series of meetings with all the senior officers of the Ministry. He reviewed the status of various programmes and issues relating to all the departments of the Ministry.
Issues relating to forthcoming budget were also discussed at the meetings. (ANI)
IMF may boost-up additional funding to Pakistan
May 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Islamabad, May. 1 (ANI): The International Monetary Fund (IMF) may jack up additional funding to Islamabad by 4.5 billion dollars, The News has reported.
Pakistan and the IMF discussed the options for additional funding during the recent annual spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, and a final decision will be taken in review talks in Dubai scheduled from May 4 to 11.
An official source said additional funding for Islamabad could go up to 12.1 billion dollars from the existing 7.6 billion dollars under a 23-month Standby Arrangement (SBA) program.
However, Additional Finance Secretary Asif Bajwa said the government had not approached the IMF formally on the issue.
An IMF official also confirmed that no official request had come from Islamabad.
According to sources, the IMF funding is meant for Balance of Payment (BoP) support and if the government decides to get additional funds, it will help the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to improve its foreign currency reserves position.
“The government will put additional funding into the foreign currency reserves which will help to improve confidence of investors for having increased foreign currency reserves,” The News quoted the official, as saying.
Though the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) had pledged 5.28 billion dollars during Tokyo’s conference translating pledges into a reality was altogether a different matter.
If these pledges are actualized, then Pakistan’s budgetary gap for the next two years can be filled. (ANI)
Private Banks may cut interest rates
November 7, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Privates and foreign banks are likely to cut interest rates in the coming days. Public sector banks have already decided to reduce interest rates following decrease in key interest rates by the Reserve Bank of India. Personal and commercial loans would be available at lower rates after cutting lending rates by public and private banks. It is to be noted that reserve bank is taking many steps to inject more liquidity in the market. Recently, it has cut cash reserve ratio, SLR and Repo rate leading to injection of more than Rs 2,60,000 crore into the system.
Finance Secretary, Mr Arun Ramanathan confirmed that the government is assured by heads of public and private banks that they would soon revise the interest rates.
Joint managing director of the largest private bank, ICICI, Ms Chanda Kochhar said that banks are ready to cut interest rates but the quantum of cut would be decided after reviewing the overall economic situation.
Meanwhile, Syndicate Bank and State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur announced to cut lending rates by 75 basis points. The managing director of HDFC bank, Mr Aditya Puri expressed happiness over the decision of RBI to revise interest rate for improving liquidity condition in the monetary system.