12 August 2008

12 August 2008
1. BHEL bags EEPC top export award
· Supplied 250MW of thermal units to Jindal and also obtained 200cr contract for the development of hydel power in Vietnam.

2. Indian – ASEAN Free Trade Pact
· Ministerial meeting conducted at Brunei.
· Free Trade agreement to be signed first in 2005 and then again in 2007 but missed the deadlines.
· Bilateral trade between india and ASEAN in 2006 touched $28.7 billion
· http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/08/12/stories/2008081250730800.htm

3. Law commission Chairman – A R Lakshmanan
· Government appointed chairman to submit the report on acid attacks. Submitted report. Highlights to improve the punishment from existing to 10 years.

4. 2008 AIDS Conference
· Held in Mexico City. India is in 3rd position after South Africa and Nigeria.
India-ASEAN FTA in concluding stage?
The trade negotiations committee (TNC) comprising top officials from India and the ten-member bloc is meeting, probably for the last time, today in Brunei to give a final push to the FTA and seal the deal.
The FTA is now scheduled to be implemented from January 1, 2009 after it is ratified by the governments of all ASEAN member countries and India. The FTA negotiations, launched in 2003, were initially scheduled to be concluded by 2005-end.
The FTA talks had reached a stalemate last year due to disagreement over reduction of import tariffs on palm oil by India. Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s two biggest exporters of palm oil, wanted India to make steeper tariff reduction commitments in both crude palm oil (CPO) and refined palm oil (RPO). In January this year, India offered to reduce tariffs on CPO to 43% and RPO to 51%, which the ASEAN agreed to.
When the agreement looked ready to be sealed, Indonesia raised a new demand that tariffs on CPO should be reduced to 20% and RPO to 30%, which created a fresh hindrance. Indonesia also presented a big negative list of items which it wanted to be excluded from the FTA.
This conclusion is very much needed for india in order to have greater market for exporting Indian products and services. Though WTO Geneva talks failed, but certainly this must have given india more ozzing.