OMC reduces Indian chrome ore price for Q1 shipments
January 31, 2009
It is reported that Orissa Mining Corporation has reduced the price of Indian chrome ore for domestic sale to a large extent. The new price is applied to shipments in January to March 2009 quarter.
As per report, a typical high grade chrome ore produced in India has contained Cr2O3 48% to 49.99% and its price has been reduced to INR 4,976 per tonne, corresponding to approximately USD 96 per tonne, which has fallen to nearly half of the price for October to December 2008 quarter.
At all events, the higher prices of USD 700 to USD 800 per tonne had once prevailed in the international market, mainly in China. However, owing to the cutback of ferrochrome to be produced from chrome ore as implemented from October of 2008, the world demand for chrome ore has decreased to a large extent and, in order to cope with this aspect, price of Indian chrome ore for domestic sale has been urged to revise.
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Slowest growth for India in 4 years
August 30, 2008
India’s economy in big trouble due to inflation and slowing growth caused by higher oil and food prices.An article written by Cherian Thomas publidhed in Shanghai Daily takes a look at India’s economic outlook :
INDIA’S economy grew at the slowest pace last quarter since 2004 as the fastest inflation in a decade and increased borrowing costs damped consumer spending.
Asia’s third-largest economy expanded 7.9 percent in the three months to June 30 from a year earlier, following an 8.8 percent gain in the previous quarter, the Central Statistical Organisation said in a statement in New Delhi yesterday. Analysts expected gross domestic product to increase 8 percent.
Inflation has almost tripled this year to 12.4 percent amid higher fuel and food prices, forcing the central bank to raise interest rates three times since June.
While growth is almost double, the average pace since India’s independence in 1947, it is slowing along with the other so-called BRIC economies of Russia, Brazil and China.
“We don’t expect India’s slowdown to be too dramatic,” said Philip Wyatt, a senior economist at UBS AG in Hong Kong. “There will be a gradual slowdown in GDP growth throughout this year – the industrial side of GDP is already slowing.”
India’s benchmark sensitive index, which has declined by a third this year, rose 3.7 percent to 14564.53 yesterday in the Bombay Stock Exchange. The rupee gained 0.4 percent to 43.935 against the US dollar. Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said yesterday that growth for the year to March 31, 2009, will be close to 8 percent.
India risks being overtaken by Russia as the world’s fastest expanding major economy after China this year. Russia’s economy may grow 7.1 percent in 2008, surpassing India’s 7-percent expansion this year, according to World Bank estimates.
Industry concerns
“High inflation and interest rates are issues that are bothering the industry as they have an impact on consumer demand and hurt corporate profitability,” said KV Kamath, chief executive officer at ICICI Bank Ltd, India’s second-largest lender. “Until we see inflation easing, it would be unrealistic to expect an easing of monetary policy.”
Services including banking, transportation and hotels grew 10 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, slowing from an 11.2-percent gain in the previous three months, according to yesterday’s report. Agriculture increased 3 percent from an earlier advance of 2.9 percent.
Inflation can win or lose elections in India, where about 456 million people live below the World Bank’s poverty line of US$1.25 a day. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress Party lost ground in nine of 11 state elections since January 2007 because of rising prices. General elections are scheduled to be held before May.
Singh said this month he doesn’t want growth to suffer in the battle against inflation.
In February, Singh wrote off US$17 billion of farm loans and this month increased salaries of about 5 million government employees by 21 percent to spur consumer demand.
The central bank’s forecast of 8-percent economic growth in the year to March 31 will be weakest expansion since 2003 and comes after Singh presided over record average annual growth of 8.9 percent since 2004.
The June-September monsoon, which accounts for four-fifths of the nation’s annual rainfall, was 39 percent below average in the week ended August 27, according to the weather office. A normal monsoon will help the country’s 234 million farmers harvest a bigger crop and boost rural incomes.
“Agriculture will hold the key for both industry and overall growth,” said Tushar Poddar, a Mumbai-based economist at Goldman Sachs.
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Indian inflation stays in double digits
August 1, 2008
The annual inflation rate of India rose marginally to 11.98 per cent for the week ended July 19,from 11.89 per cent the previous week, the Indian Finance Ministry said Thursday.
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China’s Wind Power Industry
July 20, 2008
Article by Lou Schwartz and Ryan Hodum
When 2007 ended, China’s installed base of wind power totaled just over 6 gigawatts (GW), earning the country fifth place among the world’s largest wind energy producers (after Germany, the U.S., Spain and India), up from sixth place in 2006. Wind power industry statistics show that by the end of 2008, China’s total installed base of wind power production will have reached 10 GW; some experts are estimating that by 2010, the total installed capacity for wind power generation in China will reach 20 GW and that by 2020 China’s installed base of wind power will total 100 GW (current global wind installation is 94 GW).
In 2007 an estimated 24 billion Yuan [approximately US $3.28 billion] was invested in China’s wind energy sector. Not surprisingly, this level of investment has spawned an industry — local manufacturers are responding by producing the equipment and components that the wind energy industry requires to sustain this growth.
It is conservatively estimated that between 2006 and 2015, 100 billion Yuan [US $14.5 billion] will be spent on equipment and component purchases to further develop China’s wind power industry. According to the Ministry of Commerce, by the end of 2006 there were more than 100 Chinese companies manufacturing equipment and components for the wind industry.
Foreign wind power equipment manufacturers, including the most significant international wind turbine manufacturers, Vestas, Suzlon, Gamesa, Nordex Corp., Honiton Energy Ltd. and GE Energy, have aggressively engaged this market. Though foreign wind turbine manufacturers’ share of the market has declined from nearly 75% a few years ago to 55% now, the foreign presence in China’s wind industry remains significant.
Foreign wind power equipment manufacturers have made strategic investments in China, allowing them to remain dominant even as indigenous Chinese wind equipment capabilities grow. At EU €60 million, Gamesa’s factory in Tianjin, which manufactures wind turbines, is the Spanish company’s second largest foreign investment (after the United States).
Also located in Tianjin is Vestas’ Wind Turbine Equipment (China) Co. Ltd., which manufactures blades and does wind turbine assembly.
Nordex has located two of its three manufacturing centers in China and has established the company’s Asia headquarters in Beijing. In the next three years, Nordex expects to invest an additional 500 million Yuan [approx. US $71 million ] to grow its business in China four-fold. GE Energy’s Shenyang wind turbine plant produces 1.5-MW-class wind turbines.
Localization of Equipment Manufacturing
To help spur the development of an indigenous wind power equipment and components industry, Beijing has mandated that all new wind power projects have at least a 70% Chinese component. Wind power equipment manufacturers also now enjoy a 50% discount on value added taxes (VAT) payable in China.
On April 23, 2008 the Ministry of Finance announced two changes to import tariff regulations with respect to the wind power industry, further spurring development of Chinese wind power equipment manufacturing. The first change, effective January 1, 2008, implemented a tariff and VAT rebate program for imports of parts and raw materials used in the manufacture of wind turbines. This change was significant because a large percentage of parts and raw materials used in the manufacture of wind turbines still must be sourced from outside of China.
The second tariff change, effective May 1, 2008, eliminated the tariff-free importation of wind turbines less than 2.5 MW. This tariff change is a strong indicator that the Chinese wind turbine industry is maturing rapidly; as recently as late 2007 Chinese wind power equipment was incapable of producing megawatt-class wind turbines.
Megawatt-class turbines are increasingly produced domestically and the elimination of tariff-free imports of wind turbines less than 2.5 MW in size will give added impetus to the domestic production of increasingly large wind turbines.
The economics of the wind power equipment industry are quite favorable. At present the cost of construction of wind power in China is approximately 8000-9000 Yuan/Kw [US $1170-1315 /kw] and 60% to 70% of those costs are equipment purchases. Because many of the most important Chinese wind power equipment and components companies have grown out of large industrial companies (including several public companies), there appears to be sufficient financial strength for these companies to grow.
Funds to finance new wind power equipment and component manufacturing in China have come primarily in the form of commercial bank loans, retained earnings and equity investments.
Turbines
According to Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, by 2009 China will become the world’s largest producer of wind turbines. At present China has at least 40 wind-power turbine manufacturers: 17 are state-owned or state-controlled companies, 12 are private Chinese companies, 7 are joint-venture companies and 4 are wholly foreign-owned companies.
Though China has yet to export wind turbines, China’s two largest wind turbine manufacturers — Xinjiang Jinfeng (Goldwind, whose December 2007 initial public offering (IPO) was the first pure-play wind power equipment Chinese stock offering in the U.S.) and Sinovel — have plans to export in 2009 and 2010.
Many of the largest wind turbine and other equipment manufacturers have licensed technology from western companies, including from AMSC Windtec, REpower, Aerodyn, Vensys and Garrad Hassan. Most of the largest Chinese wind turbine manufacturers have begun to produce 1.5-MW wind turbines and gradually these Chinese wind turbine manufacturers, having purchased designs for 2-, 3- and 5-MW wind turbines, are developing prototypes of larger wind turbines.
Bearings
The Chinese wind power industry continues to depend on imports for its supply of bearings. However, this dependence may be short lived. On December 11, 2007, the Timken Company entered into a joint venture agreement with the Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd. to manufacture ultra-large bore bearings for the main rotor shafts of megawatt-class wind turbines. The bearings will be manufactured in China with some of the bearing materials and components coming from the U.S. The new US $38 million plant, which will be located in Hunan Province, will begin construction in 2008. Timken will have an 80% interest in the new venture.
Blades
The largest wind turbine blades to be manufactured in China to date (measuring 40.25 meters long) are now being manufactured by the China Materials Science and Technology Wind Power Blades Joint Stock Co. Ltd., [Read more]
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Japanese Parking Lots Accept Contactless Payment
July 12, 2008
Japanese parking lot operators are beginning to accept contactless payments as card issuers continue to try to make inroads in Japan’s cash-based consumer economy. More and more pay-by-hour lots are accepting payment via contactless cards or mobile phones equipped with contactless chips, according to the Nikkei news service. Nippon Parking Development Co., which runs about 100 lots in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan, will accept iD, the contactless credit brand launched by mobile network operator NTT DoCoMo and credit card company Sumitomo Mitsui, the Nikkei report says. Another parking-lot operator, Park 24 Co., accepts three contactless electronic purses: Edy, Suica e-money and PiTaPa. The latter two e-purses are mainly used to cover transit fares in and around Tokyo and Osaka, respectively. Overall, Japanese consumers make more than 90% of their purchases in cash, according to DoCoMo estimates. To capture a piece of this market, card issuers are supporting a total of five major brands of contactless credit and electronic-cash programs, with more on the way. Consumers can make contactless payments at thousands of convenience stores and other merchant locations, but few of the card-reading terminals are interoperable, which threatens to confuse consumers. Masao Nakamura, president of DoCoMo, told the Nikkei Marketing Journal this week that his company is now working on a contactless point-of-sale terminal that can accept all three brands of contactless credit in Japan.
Source: http://www.n-p-d.co.jp/en/index.html
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