Economy & Business   

Chidambaram exempts bonds
from transaction tax

What is India News Service, July 21, 2004, 1700 hrs IST

The government today exempted bonds from the new transaction tax, and reduced the levy on day traders and arbitrageurs from 0.15% to 0.015%. 

For delivery-based transactions, the tax remains unaltered at 0.15%, but would now be shared equally by buyers as well as sellers instead of the earlier proposal of buyer paying the tax. 

Transactions in derivatives will now attract 0.10% transaction tax instead of the original proposal of 0.15%.
 
Giving the rationale behind the introduction of the transaction tax, finance minister P Chidambaram said it was neat, efficient and easy to administer and above all eliminated tax avoidance.

The will of Priyamvada Birla who died on July 3, makes it clear that all trusts, charitable organisations, health and educational institutions which M P Birla created during his lifetime shall run as usual. 

Bids for airport contracts:  Ten leading Indian corporates, including Reliance, Bharti, Videocon, L&T, Essel, and five other consortiums are in the race for the modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, bids of expressions of interest for which closed today. .

ABB to invest Rs 80 crore: ABB Limited plans to invest Rs 80 crore on capacity and business expansion this calendar year. This subsidiary of the Swiss industrial group, Asea Brown Boveri, reported a profit of Rs 30.60 crores up 39 per cent over last year's profit. 

Tata expansion in Karnataka: Tata Teleservices, the leading private telecom player plans to achieve a subscriber base of around six lakh in Karnataka. 

HPL board to induct Godrej,Tata: Jamshyd Godrej and Ratan Tata are slated to join the board of Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd. (HPL), a joint sector company. The HPL Chairman, Tarun Das, said here today at a press meet that they would act as independent directors.

L&T bags UAE order: Engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) has won a $52.5 million contract from UAE-based Bunduq Company Ltd for a process platform in an oil field in the Gulf.

Avesthagen pact with Finland firm: Biotech firm Avesthagen today said it had signed an agreement with Finland's Raisio group to market Raisio's top-selling product, Benecol in India. Benecol is a plant-derived product, which in 40 separate clinical trials 

BPCL's $107.5 m syndicated loan: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has raised $107.5 million in the international markets through a five year syndicated loan transaction. The external commercial borrowing deal, which was jointly arranged by BA Asia, BNP. 

IOB bond issue subscribed: The Rs. 200 crore Tier-II bond issue floated by Indian Overseas Bank closed on July 20 upon full subscription, according to a bank notification to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The bonds were issued on a private placement basis. 

Sony-BMG merger gets EU nod: The European Union has approved the merger of Sony Music and Bertelsmann AG's BMG unit in a deal that gives the four `majors' control of about 80 per cent of the world music market, a Bertelsmann spokesman said.