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Financial Express, Saurabh Kumar, September 28, 2017 To expand its business in Bangladesh, Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is looking to utilise global energy giant Total’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal in Chittagong to supply cooking gas to the north-eastern part of India. The oil marketer may also set up an office in Bangladesh. Separately, IOC is also planning to set up an office in Myanmar to oversee operations there. “We are looking at the possibility of feeding LPG to the northeast through Bangladesh. In Chittagong, there is a terminal of Total and we plan to utilise this,” said Sanjiv Singh, chairman, IOC, adding that Bangladesh will also benefit as IOC will be able to provide packed LPG in the country. In April 2016, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and IOC had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Dhaka to build an LPG terminal jointly which would serve both Bangladesh and the eastern and north-eastern parts of India. Singh said IOC will also go ...

Financial Express, Saurabh Kumar, September 28, 2017 The Indian petroleum industry is going through a phase wherein on the one side it is saddled with tax woes arising out of the goods and services tax, and on the other is facing flak for the rising petrol and diesel prices. Sanjiv Singh, who took over as the chairman of Indian Oil Corp (IOC) earlier this year, talks about these issues in an interview with Saurabh Kumar. Edited excerpts: Is the   Capex plan of the company on track? We have a capex plan of Rs 20,000 crore for this year spanning across different heads such as refineries, pipelines as well as marketing. In fact, the expenditure may be slightly above our original plan. We are implementing a lot of work for BS VI implementation at refineries. Lot of work is being done in the marketing filed also such as making OISD-complaint terminals and modernising terminals. A lot of investment is also being made in LPG network enhancement. How is GST affecting t...

Financial Express, Nanda kasabe, September 28, 2017 Just a couple of months ago, tomato prices had soared to Rs 40-50 per kg in wholesale markets and Rs 70-80 per kg in retail markets in almost all parts of the country. Prices have now dropped down to Rs 7-10 per kg in wholesale markets on huge supplies entering the markets almost the same time, top industry people said.Top officials of the Vegetable Growers Association of India (VGAI) say that prices are likely to drop further below the Rs 10 per kg levels for the next few months on ample supplies. The area under tomato has almost gone up three to four times since the previous season but the productivity has reduced by almost 50%, Shriram Gadhave, president, VGAI said. Vegetables have started arriving in markets at the same time resulting in falling prices, he said. On Wednesday, more than 2 lakh crates of tomatoes arrived in Pimpalgaon Baswant, one of the major tomato growing belts in Maharashtra. Modal prices touched Rs ...

The Economic Times, Bhuma Shrivastava, September 28, 2017 General Re, a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. which won a license to open an Indian office in May, is seeking a larger slice of the world’s fastest-growing reinsurance market.  The unit plans to expand in health and life insurance, as well as explore opportunities in property and casualty cover, said Venkatesh Chakravarty, chief executive officer of General Reinsurance AG India Branch. The plan is to help clients develop new products, distribution channels and enter newer market segments, he said in an interview.  Gen Re’s entry follows a rush among foreign reinsurers such as Munich Re, Swiss Re AG, London-based Lloyd’s and SCOR SE after Asia’s third-biggest economy opened the sector in 2015. The market is forecast to grow at an average annual growth rate of 9 per cent from 2017 to 2022, according to Reports Monitor.  "Given the under-penetration of insurance,...

The Economic Times, PTI, September 28, 2017 MUMBAI: The government's digital payments push, mainly online card payments through PoS machines, may leave already capital starved banks bleed by a whopping Rs 3,800 crore annually, warns a report.  After the note-ban last November, the Narendra Modi government has pushed banks into deploying millions of points-of-sale (PoS) machines to encourage online payments. Since then, banks have more than doubled their PoS terminals. The number of PoS terminals post-demonetisation has increased from 13.8 lakh in March 2016 to 28.4 lakh as of July 2017. On an average banks are installing 5,000 PoS per day.  This has resulted in increase in debit plus credit cards transactions at PoS from Rs 51,900 crore in October 2016 to Rs 68,500 crore in July 2017, with peak reaching in December 2016 to Rs 89,200 crore.  "We estimate that for OFF-US transactions, the aggregate annual loss for card transactions at PoS termina...

The Economic Times, Sugata Ghosh, September 29, 2017 MUMBAI: It could be taxing times for tax officials as well as those they turn their glare on. They have been told by the chief of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex body, to target and impose tax on Rs 3 lakh crore deposits which is estimated to be the quantum of unexplained cash parked with banks after demonetisation was announced.  CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra conveyed the message in a recent video conference to senior officials of I-T department, according to two persons who attended the meeting.  Identifying a sizeable slice of deposits as unaccounted cash will not only shore up overall direct tax collection in a slowing economy, but also give the government a chance to showcase the success of demonetisation, which has been blamed by the Opposition for the dip in growth.  Tax authorities technically have the power to come down heavily on those who are unable to explain their...