Craze of Export Quality Food Products!

Premium food exports are on an all time high. In India, the ability to indulge in export quality food products is giving the local demand and products a run for their money.
Exporters feel the need to sell the food items which are far more profitable to sell to the end user i.e. the consumer are considered better, safer and of better quality.
Some of the products include premium seafood, dry fruits, spices, special teas and coffee products, long grained basmati rice are some of the products which are giving a competition to the local brands and thus the food market is looking of for ways to increase the ever increasing demand of these items.

Sources reveal that, the prices of several products are equal to and in certain cases more than what foreign consumers have to pay. And clearly, no one is complaining.

“It is the emerging middle class with high purchasing power and changing food habits which is driving this consumption boom. They have become more quality conscious and are going after luxury goods. (And all) this will go up in the coming years given our economic growth,” says Laveesh Bhandari, Director of Delhi-based economic research firm Indicus Analytics.

“The market is growing within India too,” said D Senthil Kumar, Managing Director of Qualfis, which deals in personal and healthcare and food products. People can afford specialty products now. “Earlier, the spices were used for blending into masala powders. Now, they are also used to season soups and salads.”

“Youngsters in the IT sector prefer to eat out rather than cook at home. They are stressed for time and have enough disposable income on their hands. So this change in food habits is a reflection of the lifestyle changes,” says Carol Upadhya, Professor of social sciences at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore.

Source: Economic Times

Get ready for a Tech India!

The year 2010 has been good for India in terms of technology and 2011 holds the promise of taking the country one step forward in harnessing technology to make a dent in some of the problems that continue to challenge it. The most obvious sign of the robustness of India's technological capability is the way in which IT-ITeS exports have been able to pick up even though recovery in the developed world remains weak and much of the year has gone by amidst speculation whether there will be a setback through a double-dip depression.


In fact, the revival in IT-ITeS exports indicates that businesses, particularly the large ones, in the developed world are using India's technology offerings to retain their competitiveness when they are weighed down by the extremely weak domestic demand.


The promise that 2011 holds is that India's technological capability will be able to play a similar role in its uplift, something that it was not able to do in the past when there was a glaring discrepancy between its IT exports and the very poor level of IT adoption within the country. There are two clear signs that technology has arrived domestically. One is the confidence that Indian corporates have developed in their ability to stand up on their own feet technologically.


The eighties marked the beginning of technology imports within a still closed environment when reverse engineering declined but India's own technology development did not emerge as selected corporates which were able to get their joint ventures approved paid royalty and reaped a rent income.


But the recent years have been marked by robust technology development, particularly in the automotive sector, as Bajaj has ventured out on its own and Tata Motors has acquired Jaguar-Land Rover to give itself a technological leg-up. So India is now at the stage where Japan was in the seventies when it acquired technology to power its own incremental technological progress. The second sign and the greatest Indian technological effort that addresses the task still ahead at the bottom of the pyramid and uses innovation to crash costs is the successful launch and on-time performance of the Aadhaar project.


Giving every Indian an identity, which will enable her to have a bank account, having already acquired a mobile telephone, marks the drumbeat of progress down the road of inclusive growth.

Source : Rediff business

Indian tech pioneers, making money reach millions!

We all know how ATMs have become an inseparable part of our lives making it a lot easy for us to deal with day to day money requirements.

Here’s a story of these two Tech Pioneers who went out of their way to design a low cost ATM for the rural India. Not too long ago when Lakshminarayan Kannan set out to design a low-cost ATM to help deliver banking to the rural poor.

That was the time when he teamed up with Mr.Vijay Babu of Vortex to turn his inexperience into an advantage to create an ATM that would be suitable for various villages across India. This sentiment as meant for the good took a positive turn later on, soon after which they came up with Gramteller a low cost robust ATM, which today is a great success.

It is these few very people with a vision for our country, who inspire us to keep moving in the journey of life.

Are you an Exporter – Government has a good news for you!!!

  












The new wave of incentives being proposed especially for the labour intensive exporting verticals.

Government is planning to dole-out INR 1000 crores of fresh incentives for the exporters. The incentives are largely for the following labour intensive sectors:
-    Leather
-    Carpets
-    Handicrafts
-    Engineering goods
-    Jute
-    Readymade garments
       Among others...

 Moreover,
-    Duty free imports of capital goods have been allowed till end of March 2012
-    2% interest subsidy has been increased to textiles, leather and jute industry

Amidst these incentives, Government is also planning to stop the popular import duty reimbursement scheme (DEPB).

This is done in line with the impending implementation of the GST (Goods and Service Tax) which when rolled out would let exporters claim refund on the basis of GST.

What does this mean: Government is giving fresh incentives to the exporters and especially to the verticals which are labour intensive. This move aims to achieve the following:
-    Increased exports
-    More Jobs created especially in Leather, Textile, Readymade Garments, Jute, Handy-crafts and other allied industries.

Some of the listed companies which may be affected due to this development:

-    Bata India - Leather
-    Relaxo Footwear - Leather
-    Liberty Shoes – Leather
-    Mundra Port – Engineering, Exports
-    Punj Lloyd – Engineering
-    EngineersInd – Engineering
-    Birla Precision – Engineering/Machine Tools
-    Zodiac Clothing – Readymade Garments
-    Gokaldas Exports – Readymade Garments

 Source: The Economic Times