Wednesday, September 2, 1998
Squaring a circle
The proposed Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is a clever idea to shore up the fiscal. The budget continues to be badly haemorrhaged by burgeoning revenue expenditure (pay hikes to the bureaucracy and subsidy enlargement to special interest groups). Disinvestment is therefore proposed as a staunching exercise, and pending actual disinvestment borrowings. The government will own 49% of SPV, and financial institutions, in the main, 51%.
Canara Bank caught in a bind
Many nationalised banks have not only burnt their fingers but even their hands because of their mutual fund schemes. They started many such schemes in the wake of an artificially booming capital market in the early 90s. Canara Bank suffered for honouring its promise towards its mutual fund scheme Candouble. Indian Bank, which itself had incurred a huge loss, had to cough up money in order to fulfill its promise towards its Ind Jyoti scheme.
NGOs for end to investment talks
Over 40 national and international non-governmental groups, who were at the Second Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva in May 1998, have joined in calling for an end to the investment talks at the Organisation for the Economic Cooperation and Development and have rejected proposals to move the talks to the WTO.
|
|
