The tea industry is gradually lessening its dependence on Nabard, the apex body for agricultural refinance, according to the chief general manager of regional office, PL Behera. The tea companies were funding its developmental activities from their internal accruals. However, he said that the companies were withdrawing money from the tea deposit scheme, the corpus of which had grown to Rs 138 crore, he said. Behera said that Nabard had dialogues with representatives of Tea Board and tea industry in this regard. However, nothing fruitful had emerged because the industry was asking for higher rates of refinance at lower rates of interest. According to him, the commerce ministry was yet to take a view on the tea industry's demand.

During 1998-99, Nabard had disbursed Rs 158.55 crore of refinance to banks under investment credit in West Bengal, registering a growth of 12.4 per cent over the previous year. Under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, Nabard hadreleased Rs 193.42 crore to the state government for funding irrigation and road projects in the countryside.

Sugar remains weak

In New Delhi, steady to easy trend was noticed on the primary jaggery market when mill gate sugar prices continued to lost moderate ground due to sluggish country demand coupled with lower millers enquiries and closed with further losses. However, whole sale sugar prices remained unaltered from their overnight levels on little support. Among the mill gate sugar remained faced selling pressure from mills and yielded ground.Bulandshar s-30 and Baghpat plummeted by Rs 25 each to settled at Rs 1365 and Rs 1390 while mawana also eased by Rs 10 to close at Rs 1510 per quintal respectively.Canadian gas prices ease Canadian spot natural gas prices crept lower as post-holiday activity remained light and temperatures moderated in the west, industry sources said. NOVA returned its tolerance level to +10/-10 after changing it to +18/-2 on last Monday to encourage line packing. As aresult of Monday's tolerance change, linepack on NOVA's system was up to 13.7 billion cubic feet per day, one Calgary-based trader said. Spot gas at the AECO storage hub in Alberta was quoted at C$2.40-2.41 a Giga Joule (GJ), off about two cents from Monday's level. AECO forwards, meanwhile, slumped lower with the early decline on NYMEX, where May slipped to a low of $1.99 per mm btu.

NWE fuel oil barges steady

NWE fuel oil barge prices stood near flat in brisk trade on Wednesday morning, and gas oil eased with the dip on the IPE. High sulphur fuel oil barges traded several times at $70 a tonne in Rotterdam and $70.50 a tonne in Antwerp, dealers said, steady with late Tuesday levels. An estimated 20,000 tonnes traded in the two ports in early action. Heating oil barges for prompt Rotterdam delivery were talked between $1.25 and $1.75 over the April futures, traders said, although diesel fuel was closer to $14.00 over the screen with few sellers in evidence. IPE April gas oil was down $2.50 at$129.50 a tonne.

Liffe wheat unchanged

In London, Liffe wheat futures closed unchanged to 50 pence higher amid thin post-holiday trading, as a fall in the value of the pound supported prices, said brokers. Brokers said initial gains of 50 pence were eroded late in the day by shipper profit-taking. November new-crop wheat posted the biggest gains on the day, up 50 pence to close at pound 78.50 a metric ton. A fall in the value of the pound makes UK goods less expensive to foreign buyers, allowing UK shippers to increase prices without losing competitiveness on export markets.

New York cotton higher

Cotton futures on the New York Cotton Exchange settled higher helped by adverse weather in several cotton growing regions around the world. Traders said that rains in southern Texas, coupled with cold, wet weather in California, are delaying planting. Also, Argentina' s and Australia's harvest are being damaged by rains. But market participants said that other fundamental factors pressuringcotton futures prices include a reduction in exports of Argentine cotton to Brazil.

Reuters and agencies