Oil rises on output freeze hopes Page III Oil prices climbed in Asia on Wednesday after Kuwait said an agreement to freeze output during a producers’ meeting this month could still be reached despite conflicting statements by participants.

INS IDEProtest blocks Butwal drinking water projectThe Butwal Drinking Water Upgrading Project has run aground following obstructions from locals. The Rs195.6-million scheme has tar-geted supplying 8 million liters of drinking water daily to parched Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City. The drinking water project, which was launched five years ago, will bring water from the Jhumsa Khola in Palpa to Butwal. Pg: II

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2016 (25-12-2072) kathmandupost.ekantipur.com

moneymoneyfinance&economyfinance&economy

kathmanduposttheCROSS CURRENCY

US Dollar 106.94

Euro 121.39

Pound Sterling 150.94

Japanese Yen 9.68

Chinese Yuan 16.49

Qatari Riyal 29.37

Australian Dollar 80.74

Malaysian Ringit 27.30

Saudi Arab Riyal 28.52HOW TO READ THE TABLEThe chart shows the rates of nine world currencies. Move across the table to find rates of exchange between any two currencies. One unit of the currency mentioned vertically is worth that amount in the currency mentioned horizontally.

USD EUR JPY GBP CHF CAD AUD INR NR

NR 106.9400 121.3900 9.6800 150.9400 111.2900 81.2100 80.7400 1.6015

INR 66.665 75.65 0.6032 94.064 69.392 50.588 50.259 0.6244

GBP 0.7086 0.804 0.0064 0.7372 0.5379 0.5348 0.0106 0.0066

JPY 110.44 125.47 156.2500 114.95 83.89 83.4300 1.6578 0.1033

EUR 0.8809 0.0080 1.2438 0.9168 0.6688 0.6649 0.0132 0.0082

USD 1.1352 0.0091 1.4112 1.0408 0.7593 0.7548 0.0150 0.0094

F O R E X

Exchange rates fixed by Nepal Rastra Bank

C M Y K

REUTERSMUMBAI/SEOUL, APRIL 6

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is regaining smartphone share in India with a revamped line-up packed with special features including a safety mode for motorcyclists, as rival Apple Inc readies a renewed push into the world’s fastest-growing market.

Long the leader in price-con-scious India, the South Korean giant had been losing ground to local rivals such as Micromax and Lava, as well as Chinese brands. But Samsung’s Indian market share rose to 30 percent as of February this year, from 28.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 and 27.4 percent in the final quarter of 2014, research firm Counterpoint says.

The company credits strong sales for its mid-tier products,

particularly its new Galaxy J series phones. “Differentiated offerings are driving the trend in the mid-to-low-end segment,” said Manu Sharma, vice president of product marketing for Samsung India Electronics.

For example, Samsung recently introduced its “S bike” mode, a feature targeted at India’s legions of motorbike riders that, when activated, notifies callers that the phone’s owner is riding and can-not answer.

Other draws for buyers include models with features for using less data or keeping the phone alive for longer when charging is not possible. Researcher GfK says the J2, J5 and J7 account for near-ly 20 percent of the Indian mobile market by value. Production cost savings are also enabling Samsung to sell higher-quality phones for less, analysts said.

Samsung’s surge in the No. 2 smartphone market behind China comes as arch-rival Apple strug-gles to gain a footing with its expensive phones, holding market share of just 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015. The US firm’s renewed efforts to import and sell used iPhones, mean-while, are facing opposition from local vendors.

Samsung’s gains also underscore how the world’s No. 1 smartphone maker, with just under a fifth of the global market as of the end of 2015, is find-ing its footing after a long slide. Though still squeezed by Apple

in the premium segment and by Chinese rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd at the lower end, analysts say Samsung is righting itself by launching more attractive products and shaving production costs to compete bet-ter on price. “Samsung mid-level

smartphones, especially the J series, have been doing quite well in emerging

countries, especially in India,” said Tarun

Pathak, an analyst for Counterpoint

Technology, noting that budget-tier prod-ucts have driven vol-

umes for the South

Korean firm in recent quarters.Such efforts, and bet-

ter-than-anticipated sales for its flagship Galaxy S7 devices, are expected to lift Samsung’s earn-ings. Some analysts now expect Samsung’s January-March profit to top 6 trillion won ($5.2 billion), compared with the Thomson Reuters StarMine SmartEstimate of 5.6 trillion won derived from a survey of 22 analysts.

Though Samsung will offer no details beyond estimated January-March revenue and oper-ating profit when it gives guid-ance on Thursday, analysts expect its mobile division to have been its top earner for the first time in

seven quarters.Since mid-2014, Samsung has

been overhauling its product design, particularly in the mid-to-low tier segments, phasing out old and unpopular models and launching new devices including the A, E and J series. The newer devices incorporate parts and fea-tures traditionally found only in high-end phones, such as metal frames and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens.

As well as giving the phones a premium feel, that also enables Samsung to increase the number components common across its products, cutting costs and ena-bling more aggressive pricing, analysts said.

Dongbu Securities analyst Yoo Eui-hyung said such efforts could boost mobile division margins by 1 or 2 percentage points, although savings were likely to be offset by

price cuts. “Samsung is trying to hold its ground,” he said.

Still, Samsung is expected to remain under pressure from Chinese competitors growing more aggressive overseas as growth at home slows. “Samsung has regrouped itself but will have to be constantly on its toes,” IDC analyst Kiranjeet Kaur said.

In addition to trying to secure permission to sell used, or refur-bished, phones in India, Apple is betting its new 4-inch iPhone SE can help it gain new customers in the country. The cheapest iPhone SE will sell at 39,000 rupees ($587), before discounts or promotions, compared with 8,350 rupees for the Galaxy J2 or 14,249 rupees ($215) for the J7, according to the companies’ Indian online stores.

Despite the price gap, Apple’s emerging market-focused phone could pose a threat to Samsung.

Market leader Samsung looks to stave off Apple’s renewed India pushWO R L D’S FAST EST- G ROW I N G M A R K E T

NOC not applying auto fuel pricing

RAJESH KHANALKATHMANDU, APRIL 6

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has not been implementing auto pricing for petroleum products consistently despite its pledge to do so.

The last time the state-owned oil monopoly revised fuel prices was on February 16 even though it is sup-posed to update the rates every two weeks as per the tariff sent by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

NOC should have issued three new price lists since then if it had adhered to its schedule. It received the latest tariff from its sole supplier IOC on Monday.

NOC started implementing auto pricing for petroleum products in September 2014.

With regards to liquefied petrole-um gas (LPG), IOC revises prices every month. NOC has not imple-mented auto pricing for cooking gas, but says it plans to do so. The corpo-ration cited continuing shortages

since the Indian trade blockade for postponing the auto pricing system.

NOC’s Acting Deputy Managing Director Sushil Bhattarai said that they hadn’t implemented the auto-matic price adjustment system as the country was still reeling under fuel shortages.

“Now, prices have gone up slightly in the international market, but we didn’t want to hike prices here in such a situation,” he said. NOC didn’t adjust prices downward when global oil prices were in freefall either.

The corporation has received the latest price list from IOC, but it is yet to reach a decision on the matter. Spokesperson for NOC Mukunda Ghimire said the board had started discussions on reviewing gasoline prices.

However, Supply Secretary Shreedhar Prasad Sapkota, who is also the chairman of the NOC board, said management had not yet sub-mitted any proposal to revise fuel

prices. NOC has been earning a profit of Rs87.77 per cylinder of cooking gas by setting prices based on the price list sent by IOC on March 1. As import prices of LPG have dropped, NOC’s profit margin is likely to increase.

The international price of crude oil had plunged to an all-time low of $27 per barrel, but it has been rising in recent days. NOC said the price of crude oil on Wednesday stood at $37.87 per barrel. Ghimire said fuel prices were likely to increase this time if the corporation applied auto pricing.

NOC has been accused of not lowering fuel prices when international crude prices were falling sharply in order to keep rak-ing in profits.

Calculated on the basis of NOC’s prices on February 16, it earns a prof-it of Rs17.54 per litre of petrol, Rs15.81 per litre of diesel, Rs26.80 per litre of kerosene and up to Rs29.46 per litre of aviation fuel.

The surge in revenues has allowed the perennially broke corporation to repay Rs5.5 billion in debts to the government in the last two months. It still owes Rs7 billion to the government.

Consumer rights activists have criticized the government for not forcing the NOC to implement the auto pricing system. Baburam Humagain, general secretary of the Consumer Welfare Protection Forum, said they were planning to file a case against NOC if it does not implement the provision as per its commitment.

Cites continuing shortages for postponing implementation

Rs9.74b worth of land to be acquired for Lumbini airportPOST REPORTKATHMANDU, APRIL 6

The Tourism Ministry has embarked on a Rs9.74-billion scheme to acquire another 288 bighas of land to expand Gautam Buddha Regional International Airport in Bhairahawa, three months after starting a land acquisi-tion process for 140 bighas.

The ministry has sent the proposal to the Finance Ministry for its go-ahead before submitting it to the Cabinet. The existing domestic airport will be trans-formed into a regional inter-national airport spread over 715 bighas by 2017.

On January 13, the Cabinet had allowed the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) to acquire 140 bighas, and the government had set aside Rs2.49 billion to make com-pensation payments.

Of the $90.6 million project cost excluding land, the civil works component is

valued at Rs6.30 billion. The planned airport will

have a 3,000-metre runway and a capacity to serve 760,000 passengers annually after the completion of the first phase of upgradation.

The Asian Development Bank has provided $58.50 mil-lion ($42.75 in loans and $15.75 million in grants), the Opec Fund for International Development (OFID) will give a $15 million loan and Caan will bear the rest of the cost as counterpart funding.

Government officials said that the project would cost more than Rs23 billion if the extra land was acquired.

“The additional land requirement has been pro-posed after a new master plan showed that the airport would require a larger space for a

radar station and security areas,” said Om Prakash Sharma, chief of the project.

The new master plan was endorsed by Caan’s board recently. The earlier master plan prepared in 2006 had sug-gested that the runway be equipped with VHF Omni-Directional Range and Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR-DME), a radio navigation system.

However, the new master plan has recommended installing a Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR) station, an advanced surveillance radar which would require bigger space, he said. “Likewise, the plan has suggested expanding the security, cargo and approach areas.” Sharma added that the plan to acquire extra land had

been proposed keeping in mind the projected expansion of the airport in the future which would require more land. “The expected cost of land is also a major factor. Land prices have skyrocketed after the airport upgradation plan was unveiled; and based on current trends, the govern-ment will need to spend a huge amount of money to acquire land in the future.”

However, some government officials have said that they smell a rat in the new Rs9.75-billion land acquisition plan. “The government is also una-ware of the new master plan,” said a government official.

As per Caan’s proposal, the land will cost from Rs1 mil-lion to Rs4 million per kattha. The government needs to relo-cate 450 settlements from the proposed area.

Meanwhile, Sharma said they had begun distributing compensation payments to locals who lost their lands to the project in the first phase.

The existing domestic airport will be transformed into a regional international airport

spread over 715 bighas by 2017

looking for another landmark?

n Tourists look at a map in Basantapur, Kathmandu, on Wednesday. POST PHOTO: PRAKASH CHANDRA TIMILSENA

BANKS SET TO REJECT MALLYA’S $600M LOAN REPAYMENT OFFERREUTERSNEW DELHI, APRIL 6

A group of Indian lenders is set to reject businessman Vijay Mallya’s offer to repay IRs40 billion ($600 million), less than half of what his defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes them, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The lenders, led by State Bank of India (SBI), are due to inform the Supreme Court of their decision on the offer at a hearing on Thursday.

A senior SBI executive overseeing its stressed-assets management unit declined comment when asked about the banks’ deci-sion. A spokesman for Mallya’s UB Group also said he would not comment.

Kingfisher, which ceased operations in October 2012, owed the banks, mostly state-run, 90.91 billion rupees including interest and fees as of last November, the govern-ment has said.

A lawyer for Mallya told the Supreme Court last week that the former billionaire planned to repay 40 billion rupees to the banks by September, and 20 billion more if Kingfisher wins a lawsuit seeking damages from a plane engine-maker.

The court had sought the response of the banks on Mallya’s offer within a week.

Prospective lenders ‘will submit’ appraisal report to their boardsBIBEK SUBEDIKATHMANDU, APRIL 6

More than half dozen pro-spective lenders for the Upper Karnali Hydropower Project are submitting the project appraisal report to the boards of their respective organisa-tions after their meeting with the project’s developer GMR India, sources have said.

A project appraisal team from Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), DEG a subsidiary of German Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) held tri-party meeting with Investment Board Nepal (IBN)

and GMR in Kathmandu on Tuesday. “The developer pre-sented the project profile to the team assuring them of technical and financial viabil-ity,” said an IBN source pres-ent in the meeting. “IBN also made a presentation and assured the team about the project’s viability.”

The team, according to mul-tiple sources, “looked convinced” about the project’s

viability, but raised a few questions over the country’s political situation which might disturb the project’s development. “The group also met Prime Minister KP Oli, DPM and Defence Minister Bhim Bahadur Rawal and Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel and sought political commitment for the develop-ment of the project,” said the IBN source. The team

reviewed the project’s pro-gress, including details of power purchase agreement, existing financial arrange-ment and progress towards financial closure. GMR has to complete the financial closure by September 2016.

Multiple sources say the lenders’ team have submitted an Expression of Interest (EOI), offering a loan of more than $1 billion to the project.

The project is targeted to be completed by 2021 at an esti-mated cost of Rs145 billion.

According to the IBN, an agreement has been reached on the resettlement action plan with locals to be displaced by the project.

“The land acquisition pro-cess is almost over,” said an IBN official.

In December 2014, the IFC had signed an agreement with India’s GMR Group to become an equity partner in the project.

upper karnali hydropower project

moneyeconomy IIThursday, April 7, 2016 | the kathmandu post

German factory production slipsFRANKFURT: German industrial production declined in February, but not as sharply as expect-ed, weighed down by fall-ing activity in the manu-facturing and energy sec-tors, the economy minis-try said on Wednesday. The ministry calculated that factory output—a key yardstick for gaug-ing the health of Europe’s biggest econo-my—contracted by 0.5 percent in February com-pared with a month earli-er, corrected for seasonal factors. Analysts had been projecting in a sharper decline of 1.5 percent in February fol-lowing a jump of 2.3 per-cent in January. Manufacturing output was down by 0.5 percent month-on-month and energy output dropped by 1.8 percent, while the mild weather pushed construction output up by 1.3 percent, the minis-try said. (AFP)

Bezos defends Amazon cultureSAN FRANCISCO: Amazon chief executive and founder Jeff Bezos defended his company’s workplace culture and costly growth strategy in a letter to shareholders made public Tuesday. The work atmosphere at Seattle-based Amazon became a hot topic last year after a New York Times article portrayed it as a “hurtful,” Darwinian setting in which employees were pitted against one anoth-er to the point of tears to improve productivity. Amazon accused the newspaper of having painted a harsher pic-ture than what truly existed, ignoring or omit-ting exculpatory evi-dence during its investi-gation. “Someone ener-gized by competitive zeal may select and be happy in one culture, while someone who loves to pioneer and invent may choose another,” Bezos said in a letter available at the website of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. (AFP)

WhatsApp steps up encryptionWASHINGTON: The popu-lar messaging service WhatsApp said Tuesday it had implemented “full end-to-end encryption,” a move which steps up pri-vacy but may lead to con-flicts with law enforce-ment agencies. The Face-book-owned mobile application with one bil-lion users worldwide made the announcement following weeks of inte-nse debate over efforts by US authorities to compel Apple to help break into an encrypted iPhone. “WhatsApp has always prioritized making your data and communication as secure as possible,” a blog post announcing the change said. “And today, we’re proud to announce that we’ve completed a technological develop-ment that makes Whats-App a leader in protect-ing your private commu-nication: full end-to-end encryption. When you send a messa- ge, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that you send that message to.” (AFP)

NEWS DIGEST

Nepal Stock ExchangeSinghadurbar Plaza, Kathmandu

April 06, 2016

1 Ace Development Bank Ltd 372 360 360 94172 Agriculture Development Bank Ltd 689 677 680 175353 Alpine Development Bank Ltd 544 530 530 1674 Api Power Company Ltd 685 645 669 157945 Araniko Development Bank Ltd 263 256 260 71636 Arun Valley Hydropower Development Co. Ltd 315 306 306 73957 Asian Life Insurance Co. Ltd 1381 1370 1375 8238 Bagmati Development Bank Ltd 315 292 315 1609 Bhaktapur Finance Co. Ltd 167 165 165 127110 Bhargav Bikash Bank Ltd 347 332 341 170011 Biratlaxmi Bikas Bank Ltd 403 400 400 135812 Butwal Power Company Ltd 624 605 605 320013 Central Finance Co. Ltd 222 220 221 120014 Century Commercial Bank Ltd 379 372 375 1087715 Chhimek Laghubitta Bikas Bank Ltd 1855 1826 1826 159116 Chilime Hydropower Company Ltd 1333 1320 1322 543817 Citizen Bank International Ltd 735 723 730 2386518 Citizen Investment Trust 4365 4197 4300 186019 Country Development Bank Ltd 217 211 211 55320 Deprosc Development Bank Ltd 2700 2660 2683 151021 Dev Bikas Bank Ltd 229 226 227 624522 Everest Bank Ltd 2810 2761 2785 366323 Everest Bank Ltd Con. Pref. 1481 1478 1478 13024 Everest Insurance Co. Ltd 1235 1207 1235 268025 Excel Development Bank Ltd 560 560 560 12026 Fewa Bikas Bank Ltd 399 392 392 52827 First Micro Finance Development Bank Ltd 1166 1155 1157 299528 Garima Bikas Bank Ltd 357 350 357 213029 Global IME Bank Ltd 500 479 479 3070130 Gurans Life Insurance Company Ltd 685 670 673 256931 Hama Merchant & Finance Ltd 243 217 243 46032 Himalayan Bank Ltd 1227 1200 1200 578033 Himalayan General Insurance Co. Ltd 920 910 913 141634 ICFC Finance Ltd 253 247 247 266635 ILFCO Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha Ltd 1190 1165 1185 73236 Innovative Development Bank Ltd 421 421 421 10037 Janaki Finance Ltd 330 327 330 88038 Jebils Finance Ltd 180 175 180 126239 Kalika Microcredit Development Bank Ltd 1658 1658 1658 4040 Kalinchowk Development Bank Ltd 226 215 226 341141 Kanchan Development Bank Ltd 410 410 410 5442 Kasthamandap Development Bank Ltd 250 248 249 213543 Laxmi Bank Ltd 643 635 640 1316544 Laxmi Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Ltd 2350 2299 2350 82945 Life Insurance Co. Nepal 3650 3610 3620 178446 Lumbini Finance Ltd 213 213 213 1047 Lumbini General Insurance Co. Ltd 754 738 740 1999448 Mahakali Bikas Bank Ltd 285 260 285 555649 Mahila Sahayatra Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha Ltd 1602 1570 1576 131250 Manjushree Financial Institution Ltd 233 229 229 200051 Mirmire Microfinance Development Bank Ltd 2500 2500 2500 20052 Mission Development Bank Ltd 448 432 432 70253 Miteri Development Bank Ltd 615 613 613 45054 Mount Makalu Development Bank Ltd 1106 1085 1106 4055 Muktinath Bikas Bank Ltd 880 876 880 144256 Nabil Balance Fund 1 15.85 15.55 15.80 8568757 Nabil Bank Ltd 2105 2082 2092 658758 NABIL Bank Ltd Promotor Share 1550 1537 1550 672059 NagBeli LaghuBitta Bikas Bank Ltd 3168 3046 3168 8560 National Hydro Power Company Ltd 180 177 179 3818061 National Life Insurance Co. Ltd 2700 2662 2673 288662 Naya Nepal Laghubitta Bikas Bank Ltd 1380 1380 1380 1063 Neco Insurance Co. Ltd 1085 1080 1080 117264 Nepal Bangladesh Bank Ltd 562 553 557 9450265 Nepal Bank Ltd 407 400 405 8134166 Nepal Community Development Bank Ltd 440 440 440 1067 Nepal Doorsanchar Comapany Ltd 710 701 709 1471068 Nepal Grameen Bikas Bank Ltd 846 801 841 1582269 Nepal Investment Bank Ltd 1050 1007 1045 3719670 Nepal Investment Bank Ltd Promoter Share 914 880 891 2739971 Nepal Life Insurance Co. Ltd 3670 3626 3670 362872 Nepal SBI Bank Ltd 1525 1515 1515 314173 Nerude Laghubita Bikas Bank Ltd 2290 2260 2260 20774 NIBL Samriddhi Fund 1 10.40 10.40 10.40 7455675 NIC Asia Bank Ltd 779 772 775 909476 Nirdhan Utthan Bank Ltd 1800 1762 1800 106277 NLG Insurance Company Ltd 1078 1055 1070 440578 NMB Bank Ltd 600 593 598 1465179 NMB Sulav Investment Fund-1 11.70 11.60 11.60 1080080 Pokhara Finance Ltd 326 320 320 186781 Premier Insurance Co. Ltd 1240 1240 1240 5082 Prime Commercial Bank Ltd 575 570 574 826283 Prime Life Insurance Company Ltd 1690 1670 1670 68984 Professional Diyalo Bikas Bank Ltd 219 217 217 57685 ProgressiveFinance Ltd 154 148 148 40086 Prudential Insurance Co. Ltd 845 810 835 727087 Purnima Bikas Bank Ltd 388 378 388 67188 Raptibheri Bikas Bank Ltd 245 241 245 32289 Reliable Development Bank Ltd 398 389 390 961390 Reliance Lotus Finance Ltd 255 250 250 352191 Rural Microfinance Development Centre Ltd 975 963 963 7492 Sagarmatha Finance Ltd 313 303 309 203093 Sagarmatha Insurance Co. Ltd 1303 1271 1303 260794 Sahara Bikas Bank Ltd 923 923 923 1095 Sana Kisan Bikas Bank Ltd 1800 1774 1799 257596 Sanima Bank Ltd 806 796 801 1572897 Sanima Mai Hydropower Ltd 875 845 860 578998 Seti Finance Ltd 320 314 314 51199 Sewa Bikas Bank Ltd 329 323 328 1878100 Shangrila Development Bank Ltd 360 354 354 1100101 Shikhar Insurance Co. Ltd 1790 1748 1787 14737102 Siddhartha Equity Orineted Scheme 11.41 10.97 10.97 37000103 Siddhartha Insurance Ltd 1285 1263 1270 2229104 Siddhartha Investment Growth Scheme-1 18.93 18.92 18.92 17300105 Sindhu Bikash Bank Ltd 341 341 341 150106 Soaltee Hotel Ltd 337 336 336 1850107 Standard Chartered Bank Ltd 3162 3130 3135 7013108 Subhechha Bikas Bank Ltd 331 322 326 313109 Sunrise Bank Ltd 535 525 530 38985110 Surya Life Insurance Company Ltd 905 890 890 957111 Swabalamban Bikas Bank Ltd 2440 2361 2405 3531112 Synergy Finance Ltd 123 121 123 2185113 Tinau Development Bank Ltd 365 350 350 1487114 Tourism Development Bank Ltd 291 290 290 1881115 Triveni Bikas Bank Ltd 322 316 322 3396116 Uniliver Nepal Ltd 31212 30600 31212 20117 Union Finance Co. Ltd 131 130 130 405118 Unique Finance Ltd 219 208 219 4055119 United Finance Ltd 365 358 358 703120 United Insurance Co. (Nepal) Ltd 820 815 815 3137121 Vijaya laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Ltd 1380 1370 1370 223122 Western Development Bank Ltd 375 371 373 656123 Yeti Development Bank Ltd 196 192 196 7029

TRADING INFORMATION TRADING PRICESN COMPANY MAX MIN CLOSING NO SHARES

Nepse 1,377.42pts 0.16%

UFIL MMDBL NIB RBBBL SICL EIC4.28% 3.94% 3.77% 3.37% 3.29% 2.91%

HAMA BGDBL MBBL NGBBL KCDBL CIT9.95% 9.75% 9.61% 5.12% 5.11% 4.49%

HIGHEST GAINERS

EBLCP SEOS UFCL NLG AHPC SAFL-1.98% -2.22% -2.25% -2.28% -2.54% -3.13%

GBIME UFL MFIL CNDBL SETI PROFL-3.23% -3.24% -3.37% -3.65% -3.68% -5.73%

HIGHEST LOSERS

MODERATE LOSERS

MODERATE GAINERS

Base: 16/07/2006, (Adjusted on 10/04/2007) = 100

Sub-Indices Current Pts Change %ChangeBanking 1,272.13 1.33 0.1 Hotels 1,809.04 7.98 0.44 Dev Bank 1,364.63 0.35 0.03 HydroPower 2,291.43 9.75 0.42 Finance 705.66 8.44 1.21 Insurance 6,137.19 39.22 0.64

Total Amount Rs. 556,050,123Total Quantity 979,694Total No of Transactions 2,849

INDEX CURRENT PTS CHANGE %CHANGENEPSE 1,377.42 2.16 0.16 Sensitive 297.38 0.38 0.13 Float 98.87 0.03 0.03

SHARES

REUTERSNEW DELHI/BEIJING, APRIL 6

China’s top carmaker SAIC Motor Corp and Great Wall Motor, its big-gest maker of SUVs, are spearhead-ing the country’s first major push into India, one of the world’s fastest growing auto markets, as growth at home stagnates.

The entry is late and risky— global carmakers like Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor and General Motors have struggled to push sales in the cost conscious Indian market despite being here for more than a decade. Chinese cars also suffer from perceptions of poor quality in India.

While they plan to woo Indian buyers with their no-frills cars and cut-price SUVs, Chinese manufac-turers will compete head on with established carmakers like Suzuki Motor and Hyundai Motor that dom-

inate many markets in Southeast Asia. Even so, India offers one of the last frontiers of growth—by 2020 the country is likely to become the world’s third-largest car market, from fifth place, with annual sales nearly doubling to 5 million vehicles from 2.7 million in 2015.

SAIC and Great Wall are in sepa-rate talks with the state government of Maharashtra in western India to set up a factory in the auto hub of Pune city, the state industries minis-ter told Reuters.

A source close to SAIC said the company is considering Pune city among other locations. The auto-maker plans to set up a factory in India within the next three years and is in the early stages of researching such a move, the person said. “The market potential of India is huge,” said the source.

For SAIC, the maker of marquee MG and Roewe cars, India is next on

the agenda after entering Indonesia and would happen before they try to enter Russia, other European nations or the United States.

SAIC is also in discussion to buy a plant currently operated by GM in western Gujarat state, according to people familiar with the matter. The Detroit automaker plans to stop pro-duction at the Halol plant in Gujarat by end-June as it consolidates opera-tions at one location.

“We are examining a number of options in relation to the Halol fac-tory ... including the sale of the site,” GM said in a statement. The company declined to elaborate on

how it plans to sell the factory and said there was nothing further to announce about Halol at this point.

In February, 12 executives from Great Wall attended the India Auto Expo car show to survey the market and understand government policy on diesel engines and emissions, an industry source in India said.

Great Wall’s board of directors on March 7 voted unanimously in favour of a motion to establish a subsidiary in India, according to a stock exchange filing. A spokeswom-an said there were no further details on the automaker’s plans there, including when it would set up a subsidiary.

Chongqing Changan Automobile, China’s fourth biggest automaker, launched a search in January for an advisor in India to help form an entry plan, according to an email from the company to a consultant that was seen by Reuters.

Company president Zhu Huarong told reporters in November that Chongqing Changan saw India as one of its three strategic foreign markets for investment and planned to start making cars there by 2020. A spokeswoman for SAIC and a spokesman for Changan declined to comment.

Global carmakers like Toyota Motor Corp and Volkswagen have struggled to push sales in India in part due to the lack of a portfolio of feature-rich, compact cars priced at about $5,000-$7,000, a segment where demand is high.

Equally essential in the Indian market is having a wide-spread ser-vice network and keeping car main-tenance costs low.

“If the Chinese carmakers are able to overcome the quality percep-tion, they have a huge cost advan-tage,” said Amit Kaushik, country head at consultant JATO Dynamics.

Top China carmakers in major push into IndiaL AT E A N D R I S KY ?

C M Y K

India offers one of the last frontiers of growth—by 2020 the country is likely to become the world’s third-largest car market

car show

n People visit 2016 Zagreb Auto Show in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, on Wednesday. A total of 440 exhibitors from 33 countries took part in the event, which runs through April 10. XINHUA

Protest blocks Butwal drinking water projectAMRITA ANMOLBUTWAL, APRIL 6

The Butwal Drinking Water Upgrading Project has run aground following obstruc-tions from locals. The Rs195.6-million scheme has targeted supplying 8 million liters of drinking water daily to parched Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City.

The drinking water project, which was launched five years ago, will bring water from the Jhumsa Khola in Palpa to Butwal.

Mohan Dutta Bhatta, chief of the Drinking Water Corporation, Butwal, said they had to stop the project after locals put forth various demands. “Most of the demands cannot be fulfilled by the project,” he added.

Residents of Koldanda and Dovan village development committees have asked the project to construct irrigation canals, water supply systems, roads and dams in their areas.

The estimated cost of these schemes crosses millions of rupees. As per the project, the local people have been creat-ing hurdles since last month. Bhatta said they were unable to fulfil all of their demands.

“Building a dam alone will cost Rs10 million,” said Bhatta, adding that they had been receiving such demands almost every year since they started the project.

Earlier, locals had submit-

ted a memorandum to Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel saying that they should be paid a royalty of Rs1 million annually for pro-viding water to the project.

Last year too, the people

had forced the project to stop the construction work for three months. The project has paid a compensation amount of Rs145,000 to the people whose land would be used to lay the pipeline.

This is not the first time that the drinking water pro-ject has encountered opposi-tion from locals.

Two decades ago, the Sisne-Butwal Drinking Water Project had to shut down after having spent Rs30 million. The project has been revived in its new form after deciding to obtain water from the Jhumsa Khola.

Meanwhile, Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City said it would help the project to resume work.

Executive Officer Dhruba Bahadur Khadka said they had initiated moves to resolve outstanding issues. Butwal’s drinking water requirement amounts to 30 million litres daily while supplies total 19 million litres.

n Residents of Koldanda and Dovan village development committees have asked the project to construct irrigation canals, water supply systems, roads and dams in their areas. POST FILE PHOTO

Pfizer, Allergan scrap $160b merger dealREUTERSNEW YORK, APRIL 6

US drugmaker Pfizer and Irel-and-based Allergan formally announced the scrapping of their $160 billion merger on Wednesday, in a big win for President Barack Obama who has been pushing to curb tax-slashing “inversion”deals.

The announcement fol-lowed the unveiling of new US Treasury rules on Monday aimed at curbing such deals. The merger would have allowed New York-based Pfizer to cut its tax bill by redomiciling to Ireland, where tax rates are lower.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday that the deal would be terminated. Pfizer said on Wednesday it would pay Allergan $150 million as reim-

bursement of expenses relat-ed to the deal.

Allergan said it would report first-quarter results by May 10, when it would also update on its plans to simplify its operations after the close of its $40.5 billion deal to sell its generic drug business to Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. The deal is expect-ed to close by June.

While the new Treasury rules did not name Pfizer and Allergan, one of the provi-sions targeted a specific fea-ture of their merger—

Allergan’s previous history as a major acquirer of other companies. The collapse of what would have been the big-gest-ever inversion deal allows Obama to claim a major victory in his last year in office. Obama on Tuesday called global tax avoidance a “huge problem” and urged Congress to take action to stop US companies from tax-avoid-ing deals.

Pfizer was concerned that any tweaks to salvage its deal with Allergan might have pro-voked new rules by the Treasury, the source had told Reuters.

This is not the first time that a tightening of US inver-sion rules has caused a merg-er to unravel. US drugmaker AbbVie Inc abandoned its $55 billion takeover of Ireland-domiciled peer Shire Plc.

Russia sees $45-50 oil price ‘acceptable’REUTERSMOSCOW, APRIL 6

Russia believes an oil price at $45-$50 per barrel is acceptable for the global oil market to balance, as it prepares to meet leading oil producers in Doha later this month, sources familiar with Russian plans said on Wednesday.

Leading oil producers plan to meet in Doha on April 17 to cement a preliminary deal reached between Russia, Venezuela, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in February to freeze oil output at levels reached in January, to curb a surplus on the oil market.

“Now there is discussion of how long production will be frozen and ways to monitor the agreement,” one of the sources said.

“The level of $45-50 (per barrel) is acceptable from the point of view of market

balance: if prices go higher shale oil production could start to recover.”

Oil producers such as Russia and Venezuela are highly dependent on energy revenues, with their state budgets at risk after global oil prices fell to under $40 per barrel from over $115 in June 2014.

Russian sources said that the deal to freeze oil output is expected to speed up rebalanc-ing of oil supply and demand by around half a year.

Russia was pumping at a 30-year high last month of 10.91 million barrels per day (bpd), even higher than its previous record in January.

The sources said Russia would not put new projects on hold as part of the freeze deal, and may use other methods to regulate its production.

They said the agreement in Doha is set to cover produc-tion, not exports.

FACEBOOK UPS PERISCOPE CHALLENGEAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSESAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 6

Facebook on Wednesday ramped up its challenge to Twitter-owned Periscope with upgrades to the social network’s live video broad-casting feature.

People using the Live streaming feature at Facebook will be able to “broadcast: to groups at the social network or in scheduled “events”.

Scheduled events can even be used for online ques-tion-and-answer sessions. “We hope this new ability to both broadcast and watch live video within Groups and Events enables people to con-nect more deeply with their closest friends, family and the communities of people who share their interests,” Facebook product manage-ment director Fidji Simo said in a blog post.

The merger would have allowed New York-based

Pfizer to cut its tax bill by redomiciling to Ireland,

where tax rates are lower

money worldIII the kathmandu post | Thursday, April 7, 2016

Glencore sells agri-biz stakeZURICH: Swiss commodi-ties giant Glencore announced Wednesday it was selling nearly half of its vast agriculture business to a Canadian pension fund for $2.5 bil-lion (2.2 billion euros), in cash. Glencore said it would sell 40 percent of its Agricultural Products business to a whol-ly-owned subsidiary of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. “The proceeds from the trans-action will be used by Glencore to reduce net indebtedness,” said the company, which is under-going a dramatic restruc-turing to trim its tower-ing debt. (AFP)

Japan N-reactors can stay onlineTOKYO: Japan’s only two working nuclear reactors can remain online after a court rejected an appeal by res-idents who said safety rules following the 2011 Fukushima disaster were inadequate, the operator confirmed Wednesday. The court ruling was a victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who plans to bring back atomic energy, five years after a series of melt-downs at the Fukushima plant. The catastrophe led to the closure of all nuclear reactors in the resource-poor country, forcing it to turn to expe-nsive fossil fuels. (AFP)

NEWS DIGEST

REUTERSMUMBAI, APRIL 6

India’s all-singing, all-dancing movie hits capture the attention of hundreds of millions of fans—but they generate precious little in box office profits for the world’s largest cinema industry.

Now, with smartphone sales booming and India preparing for nationwide 4G Internet access, India’s film and TV industry hopes the ease of tapping your phone for the latest release will generate profits at last, overcom-ing the problems of woefully few cinemas and rampant piracy.

India has about 10,000 cinema screens across a country of 1.3 billion—8 for every million peo-ple, compared with 120 in the United States and 30 in China, according to digital film distribu-

tion network UFO Moviez.That low density means that

for most Indians, pirated content is the only way to see movies, costing the industry some 30 per-cent of potential annual gross collections.

“Even if we can manage to get a small fraction of the people to pay on their phones, you are look-ing at a market that can poten-tially become bigger than the box office,” said Girish Johar, head of revenue at Essel Vision Production, part of Zee Entertainment Enterprises, one of India’s largest media groups.

The profit boost for studios will in large part be driven by the rush for local-language content from platforms like Netflix Inc, which launched in India this year and is aggressively adding to its Hindi-language catalogue.

Homegrown rivals, though keen to forge partnerships with online streaming companies, are introducing their own platforms, a new revenue stream for produc-tion firms that earn little from either cinemas or DVD sales.

And the numbers add up. Seven out of 10 Indians watch at least one online video a month, and in the next three years nearly 90 percent of all Internet data in India is expected to be used towards streaming movies and television.

Key to the boom is cheap, fast, mobile broadband nationwide, which this year promises to bring millions online, even outside big cities. That means better view-ing—and easier payment. India’s cash-rich Reliance Industries is expected to roll out one of the world’s largest 4G networks this

year when it launches its Jio mobile network.

To keep up, incumbent players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are cutting Internet

charges and building out their own high-speed data networks. The results are good already for providers like YouTube, which says Indian usage has soared,

outpacing global peers, thanks to mobile traffic which more than doubled last year.

“Traditional film and TV con-tent still continues to drive mas-sive watch time … while stu-dio-made songs, movies and clips continue to be some of the most popular content nation-wide,” said Gautam Anand, YouTube’s Asia Pacific director of operations.

The hope is that cheap, conven-ient content, perhaps IRs25 (37 US cents) for a movie streamed to your phone, will make piracy redundant. Of course, getting cash out of the consumer remains a challenge, and sub-scription is an untested model.

“In the US, everybody has been paying for content but in India people don’t pay as easily,” said Gaurav Gandhi, chief oper-

ating officer of Viacom18, a ven-ture between US group Viacom and Reliance. Indians feel they pay for data, so the content should be free, he says.

But the growing use of phones as credit cards, to pay for small purchases, will help. So too, say industry insiders, will unique content. “We have to come up with our own model and a large part of that would rest in creating unique content for online,” said Radhika Kapoor, head of content Fox Star studios India that runs the Hotstar streaming platform.

Others argue the secret will be ad-driven content, that can be provided free. Indeed, getting users to stay loyal to one platform to leverage subscription revenue might be challenging, but getting advertisers interested is not.

Bollywood studios eye profits at last, as India goes smartphone madTA P P I N G T H E P H O N E

C M Y K

job fair

n College students seek employment opportunity during a job fair at Anhui University in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province, on Wednesday. The job fair provided more than 6,000 vacancies by 216 employing units. XINHUA

mango auction

n Indian farmers wait for mangoes to be auctioned at the Gaddiannaram Fruit Market on the outskirts of Hyderabad on Wednesday. India produces about 15 million tonnes of mangoes, with 1.5-3 percent exported and the rest consumed domestically. AFP/RSS

Backlash against tax dodges by rich, powerfulAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEPANAMA CITY, APRIL 6

Western leaders pledged to crack down on tax dodges by the rich and powerful on Wednesday amid a mush-rooming scandal provoked by revelations of a web of Panama-based offshore finan-cial dealings.

A day after Iceland’s prime minister stepped down after being named in a massive leak of 11.5 million confidential documents—the so-called Panama Papers—internation-al attention turned to tax cheats, with Panama’s role in particular focus.

France led global pressure on the Latin American nation, saying it would put Panama back on its own list of tax havens, four years after it had been removed. Finance Minister Michel Sapin called on the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to do the same. “Unfortunately Panama has a bit of a tendency to make U-turns, to play the good guy and then the bad guy. This cannot go on,” Sapin told par-liament Wednesday.

Panama hit back, however, after days of being hammered in the world media. “In Panama, there is a law that sets out retaliation measures against countries that include Panama in ‘grey lists’,” Alvaro Aleman, the minister for the presidency, warned France in a news conference.

The retaliatory measures

can include blocking foreign investment or withholding public tenders.

Panama had earlier lashed out OECD head Angel Gurria, saying his description of the country as the last major tax haven impenetrable to law enforcement was “unfair and discriminatory”.

Panamanian law firm Mos-sack Fonseca is at the centre of the scandal after its papers were obtained from an anony-mous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with over 100 media groups by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

After a year-long investiga-tion, the ICIJ and other inter-national media on Sunday published the first wave of revelations, detailing the off-shore financial activities of

140 political figures. Many of those identified insist they have done no wrong.

Offshore financial dealings are not illegal in themselves, though they may be used to hide assets from tax authori-ties, launder the proceeds of criminal activities or conceal misappropriated or politically inconvenient wealth.

The Group of 20 advanced economies has backed a series of tax crackdowns since 2009. That has led to a weakening of international banking secre-cy, with 19 countries commit-

ting to automatically exchange clients’ financial information by 2018. One of the founders of the firm, Ramon Fonseca, told AFP it had lodged a criminal com-plaint with Panamanian pros-ecutors over the breach which he blamed on a computer hack launched from abroad. “Nobody is talking of the hack, and that is the only crime that has been commit-ted,” he said.

US President Barack Obama said wealthy individu-als and corporations were “gaming the system” by mak-ing use of tax code loopholes to which average taxpayers had no access. He also labelled “insidious” the growing prac-tice of US companies merging with foreign firms just to cut their tax liabilities. “A lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the

problem,” the US leader said.Iceland’s Prime Minister

Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was the biggest casualty so far, quitting his post Tuesday after it emerged he and his wife invested mil-lions of dollars in an offshore company that had stakes in three Icelandic banks that col-lapsed in 2008, tipping the country into a deep recession. He denies any wrongdoing, but bowed out on after thou-sands took to the streets.

Other more powerful fig-ures are implicated in the Panama Papers, which come from around 214,000 offshore entities and cover almost 40 years. They purportedly reveal a web of financial transactions by associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s associates and rela-tives of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Kremlin suggest-ed a US plot after the leaks put a close friend of Putin’s at the top of an offshore empire worth more than $2 billion.

Beijing refused to respond to “groundless accusations” that eight current or former members of the ruling party’s most powerful body concealed their fortunes through off-shore havens, as well as rela-tives of Xi, who has overseen a much-publicised anti-cor-ruption drive.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged to cre-ate a commission to investi-gate after three of his chil-dren were named in the papers.

panama papers

France leads global pressure on the Latin

American nation, saying it will put Panama back on its

own list of tax havens

n A file photo shows commuters watch videos on their mobile phones as they travel in a train in Mumbai, India. REUTERS

Oil rises on output freeze hopesAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSESINGAPORE, APRIL 6

Oil prices climbed in Asia on Wednesday after Kuwait said an agreement to freeze output during a producers’ meeting this month could still be reached despite conflicting statements by participants.

But analysts said the rebound would not likely last owing to a painful supply glut and weak demand caused by the slowing world economy. At around 0815 GMT Wednesday,

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in May was up $1.03, or 2.87 per-cent, at $36.90 and Brent crude for June was 72 cents, or 1.90 percent, higher at $38.59.

Both contracts eked out an increase on Tuesday, but pric-es are still well below the $40 level reached last month fol-lowing a rally driven by hopes of an agreement during the upcoming April 17 producers’ meeting in Doha.

Prices dived after Saudi Deputy Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman said last week his country would only agree to limit output if rival producers, such as Iran, followed suit. But Iran, which has been raising production since the West lifted nucle-ar-linked sanctions in January, has insisted it should not be the one to cut back.

Key OPEC member Kuwait, however, said a freeze deal could still be reached without Tehran, Bloomberg News reported. It quoted Kuwait’s OPEC governor, Nawal

al-Fezaia, as saying that major producers had no option but to reach an agreement and that a freeze could set a floor price.

Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said traders were likely to wait for the results of the meeting before making big bets.

“Given the welter of state-ments... people are probably just going to ignore (the com-ments) until they get the results of the meeting.”

India’s services activity jumps sharply in MarchREUTERSMUMBAI, APRIL 6

Activity in India’s services sector accelerated sharply in March following a strong increase in demand, although employment growth remained sluggish, a business survey showed on Wednesday.

The Nikkei/Markit Services Purchasing Managers’ Index jumped to 54.3 in March from February’s 51.4, matching January’s 19-month high. “March PMI surveys signalled a reassur-ingly robust end to the finan-cial year for the Indian econo-my, with sharper increases in new business spurring activi-ty growth in both the manu-facturing and service sec-tors,” said Pollyanna De Lima, economist at Markit.

A sister survey on Monday showed manufacturing activi-ty expanded at the fastest pace in eight months.

New business expanded for the ninth consecutive month and the sub-index, an indica-tor of domestic and foreign demand, reached its highest level since June 2014.

However, despite the improvement in new orders, firms have barely added any jobs in the last two years, with March once again seeing only a fractional improvement. “With the sole exception of the mild increase in hiring seen among service providers

last July, the two surveys col-lectively have signalled a broadly stagnant labour mar-ket for the past two years,” said De Lima.

Along with the weak pace of new job creation, what is likely to caution policymakers is the possibili-ty that inflation could rise fur-ther in coming months, limit-ing the central bank’s ability to maintain accommodative monetary policy.

Firms reported a rise in both input and output prices, with prices charged at their highest level since May of last year.

Consumer inflation cooled to 5.18 percent in February and, coupled with the govern-ment’s adherence to fiscal consolidation in its budget, prompted the Reserve Bank of India to cut its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points to a more than five-year low of 6.50 percent on Tuesday.

Service providers were, however, optimistic about growth in the year ahead, with the business expecta-tions sub-index reaching a nine-month high.

The Services Purchasing Managers’ Index jumped

to 54.3 in March from February’s 51.4, matching January’s 19-month high

GOLD KEEPS GAINS ON SAFE-HAVEN DEMANDREUTERSSINGAPORE, APRIL 6

Gold largely held onto sharp overnight gains on Wednesday as disappointing global eco-nomic data and a tumble in equities sent investors scurry-ing towards the safe-haven metal.

Investors were awaiting the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s March policy meeting, due later in the session, to gauge the out-look of the US central bank’s monetary policy.

Gold is sensitive to rising US interest rates because they lift the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets. It had rallied 16 percent in the first quarter of the year on speculation the Fed will not be able to raise rates.

Spot gold eased 0.4 percent to $1.226.40 an ounce by 0637 GMT on profit-taking, but retained most of its 1.3-per-cent gain from Tuesday.

“The Fed will not do any-thing drastic. They are limit-ed by the global economic con-cerns and volatile equities,” said Mark To, head of research at Hong Kong’s Wing Fung Financial Group. Gold prices at $1,230 are very rea-sonable and this level will be sustained through the quar-ter, he said.

Gold had posted its biggest quarterly rise in nearly 30 years in the March quarter as expectations faded that the Fed would move to normalize interest rates.

moneybazaar IVThursday, April 7, 2016 | thekathmandupost

Turkish Airlines honours top agencies

KATHMANDU: Turkish Airlines honoured its top perform-ing travel and cargo agencies in Nepal for the year 2015 during its agency award ceremony on Tuesday. Osho World Travel Nepal, Yeti Holidays, Megabyte Travels & Tours, Yeti Travels and Sumegh Tours & Travels were named the top five performing agencies in the travel seg-ment. Public Freight, World Freight International, Kumari Air Freight, Shangri-La Freight and Legend Cargo were the top performers in the cargo category. Turkish Airlines, which started Istanbul-Kathmandu flights linking Nepal and Europe in September 2013, flew 101,330 passengers and transported 2,137 tonnes of cargo last year. (PR)

Agni opens showroom at Pani PokhariKATHMANDU: Agni Incorporated, the authorised distribu-tor of Mahindra in Nepal, has opened a brand new show-room at Pani Pokhari. Pashupati Murarka, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and Sanjay Jadhav, vice-president and head of International Operations (AFS) South Asia, Mahindra & Mahindra, jointly inaugurated the showroom. The com-pany also announced that the sales and distribution of the company’s recent entry-level SUV vehicle, the Mahindra KUV100, the young SUV, would be done through this showroom. It expressed its firm belief that the new showroom would add to the value and services for customers of the Mahindra brand of vehicles. (PR)

Himalayan, Shikhar sign agreementKATHMANDU: Himalayan Bank and Shikhar Insurance have entered into an agreement to deliver Bancassurance Service. As per the agreement, the bank will offer non-life insurance services to the people acting as a corporate agent of Shikhar Insurance. Ashoke SJB Rana, CEO of Himalayan Bank, and Dip Prakash Panday, CEO of Shikhar Insurance, signed the agreement. (PR)

India’s steel imports surge in MarchNEW DELHI: India’s steel imports rose 18 percent in March, snapping four straight months of falls, provisional government data showed, on the back of deals struck before the government imposed a floor price in February to curb cheap imports. Last week, the government extended safeguard taxes on some steel products until March 2018, and in February imposed a floor price on imports to deter countries such as China from undercutting local mills, the first such move in more than 15 years. India, the third-largest steel producer in the world, shipped in 994,000 tonnes of the alloy last month, 18.2 percent higher than the corre-sponding month a year earlier, data from the Joint Plant Committee of the steel ministry showed. “Some steel could have been booked in January and February. This is probably what has arrived in March,” said Goutam Chakraborty, an analyst at Emkay Global Financial Services. (REUTERS)

FCA to invest $500 million in ArgentinaBUENOS AIRES: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will invest $500 million to revamp its Cordoba plant in Argentina where a new model will be produced next year. The new model will be launched in the second half of 2017 and, once fully operational, the plant will have a total production capacity of more than 100,000 vehicles per year. “We have decided to install a new modular platform for the produc-tion of a completely new model that will only be pro-duced at this plant, with the majority of production des-tined for export,” FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said at a ceremony on Tuesday in Argentina that was also attended by Argentine President Mauricio Macri. More than 80 percent of the production will be destined for exports, primarily to markets in Latin America. (REUTERS)

Reliance Jio’s soft launch this monthMUMBAI: Amid speculation over the actual date of the roll-out of Reliance Jio 4G telecom services, a top global financial services firm, UBS, said while soft launch was expected by the end of this month, the full commercial offering was expected by December. “Contrary to market belief that Jio has started rolling out 4G SIMs commercially, our channel checks in Mumbai and Delhi suggest that although SIMs have been shipped to the retail outlets, they are not yet available for sale,” the consultancy said in a report. “At present, Jio SIM cards are only available to Reliance employees, post its beta launch in December 2015. Our speed test on trial SIM cards in Reliance outlets indicate network speed of 18-20 Mbps versus Vodafone’s 4G speed of 8-10 Mbps.” (IANS)

VW to recall 103,569 vehicles in ChinaBEIJING: Volkswagen will recall 103,569 vehicles in China to replace a missing part without which the brake pedals may dislodge, said a General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine statement. The recall, set to begin on April 18, affects imported Touareg vehicles manufac-tured between January 12, 2010 and January 19, 2016, Xinhua cited the statement as saying. (IANS)

BIZLINE

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEBANGALORE, APRIL 6

India’s version of craft brewing is seeing scores of thirsty tip-plers sample everything from coconut stout to mango lager, as tastes mature in a country that has traditionally only downed strong liquor “to get a kick”.

Bangalore has more than 25 thriving brewpubs—a pub with a small brewery on the premis-es—while India’s other cosmo-politan cities boasting vast young populations and expand-ing middle classes are also catching on. “They are becom-ing more sophisticated in their tastes. We have young custom-ers, middle-aged and some in their 80s with their walking sticks,” said Meenakshi Raju, co-owner of the Biere Club.

Raju and her brother decided to open a brewpub years ago

after travelling in Europe and the United States where success-ful microbreweries “were mush-rooming all over the place”.

But it took another five years of working with India’s notori-ously multi-layered bureaucracy before laws were drafted and passed in Karnataka state, of which international IT hub Bangalore is the capital, and its first brewpub opened in 2011. “It was difficult mainly because it was a brand new concept that nobody knew about or under-stood,” Raju said.

Enjoying a lager with friends before watching a recent World Twenty20 cricket match, local engineering student Abhay Sarnaik said the craft beer was a welcome change. “We are bored of drinking bottled beer. There’s nothing wrong with Kingfisher but you can’t drink it all the time,” the 21-year-old

said of the longtime local favourite, which has more than 50 percent of the country’s $3 billion annual beer market.

Indians down 425 million cases of beer alone annually

and have traditionally opted for strong beer, which normally has an alcohol content of more than eight percent. It is also the world’s biggest whiskey drink-ing nation. “We are a big alcohol

drinking country, but it’s never been about having a refreshing beverage with friends or over a meal, it’s always been about get-ting a high,” market expert Ankur Bisen said. “We drank strong beer to get a kick.”

But as income levels rise in India, along with overseas trav-el, drinkers are becoming more discerning, said Bisen, senior vice-president of retail and con-sumer products at consultancy Technopak in New Delhi.

Bisen said although craft beer sales were miniscule nationally, they were growing in major cit-ies including financial capital Mumbai, and Gurgaon, a satel-lite city outside Delhi that is home to numerous global com-panies, as well as craftbrew cap-ital Bangalore.

But the hurdles facing micro-brewers wanting to expand are enormous in a country whose 29

states slap a mind-boggling array of regulations and taxes on booze and its trade. “It’s like having 29 different countries within India,” Bisen said of try-ing to do business nationally.

“It’s also like a golden egg for some governments,” he said of revenues from tariffs on alcohol, which include the national gov-ernment’s whopping 150 percent on imported spirits.

Other states in deeply reli-gious India take a wildly differ-ent view. Prohibition has exist-ed in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home of Gujarat for dec-ades, while impoverished Bihar is rolling it out from this month.

Southern Kerala, which draws tourists to its tea planta-tions, backwaters and sweeping coastlines, has banned alcohol sales in most hotels in a bid to combat a damaging local drink-ing problem.

Mango lager? India’s thirst for craft beer growsC H A N G I N G T R E N DS

C M Y K

n A file photo shows a man tastes craft beer in Bangalore, India. AFP/RSS

HERE in talks with Amazon, MicrosoftREUTERSFRANKFURT, APRIL 6

Amazon.com and Microsoft are in talks about taking a minority stake in HERE, a digital mapping business controlled by Germany’s luxury carmakers to help develop self-driving cars, Daimler said on Wednesday.

Germany’s luxury carmakers including Daimler’s Mercedes, Volkswagen’s Audi division and BMW bought HERE for 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) from Nokia last year to create an alternative digital mapping business to Google.

“We are talking to Amazon, Microsoft and many auto makers,” Thomas Weber, a Daimler board member in charge of research and development, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.

A Daimler spokesman on Wednesday confirmed the remarks.

Earlier this month sources told

Reuters that Amazon and Microsoft were in talks with the carmakers.

The consortium needs cloud com-puting providers to manage the mass of data collected from sensors on board thousands of Mercedes, BMW and Audi cars. The data about traffic and road conditions is then fed into digital maps. “We need a cloud provid-er to handle the huge amounts of data created by HERE and its users. We haven’t taken any decisions yet,” Weber told the Wall Street Journal.

Rare diamond fetches $30.8mINDO-ASIAN NEWS SERVICE HONG KONG, APRIL 6

A rare blue diamond bucked the recent downturn in the auction market when it was sold for $30.8 million at Sotheby’s, setting a new record.

The “De Beers Millennium Jewel 4”, a 10.10-carat oval-shaped fancy vivid blue dia-mond, fetched more money than any other jewel at an auction in Asia ever, Efe news agency cited the auction house as saying.

The gem was sold to an anonymous bidder over phone, reported the South China Morning Post newspa-per on Wednesday.

Chinese artist Zhang Daqian’s ‘Peach Blossom Spring’, an ink-and-colour hanging scroll, also set a record of its own when it was

sold for a record $34.7 million, far surpassing its estimated sale price of $8.3 million.

The artwork was sold to Shanghai’s Long Museum after a frenzied bidding pro-cess which saw more than 100 bids in 50 minutes.

The sales subverted expec-tations for the auction market, which has been affected by the slowdown in China’s economy. Kevin Ching, chief executive of Sotheby’s Asia, said the results prove “the general economy isn’t a predictor of the art market”.

bike show

n A model poses with a vehicle at the Taiwan International Motorcycle Show at the Taipei World Trade Center in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday. The show will run through April 9. AP/RSS

MARKET WATCH

Vegetables Unit Price (Rs)

Fruits Unit Price (Rs)

Red Potato Kg Rs35

White Potato Kg Rs28

Onion (Indian) Kg Rs45

Tomato Small Kg Rs45

Tomato Big Kg Rs45

Squash Kg Rs45

Cabbage Kg Rs28

Egg Plant Long kg Rs45

Cow Pea Kg Rs95

GASOLINE WATCH

BULLION PRICE PER TOLA

SOURCE: FENEGOSIDA

Apple Kg Rs105

Pomegranate Kg Rs215

Water Melon Kg Rs33

Orange Kg Rs115

Mango kg Rs165

Pineapple 1Pc Rs95

Cucumber Kg Rs85

Pear Kg Rs190

Papaya Kg Rs65

Banana Doz Rs105

Lime 100 Pcs Rs475

DAILY COMMODITIES

Pokhreli Rice Kg Rs65

Jeera Masino Rice Kg Rs70

Indian Basmati Rice Kg Rs100

Mansuli Rice Kg Rs55

Sona Rice Kg Rs45

Beaten Rice (Taichin) Kg Rs120

Beaten Rice Kg Rs50

Big Mas Kg Rs270

Small Mas Kg Rs250

Big Mung Kg Rs220

Musuro (No 1) Kg Rs170

Musuro (No 2) Kg Rs160

Rahar Kg Rs240

Chana (Big) Kg Rs150

Chana (Small) Kg Rs140

Chilli Powder Kg Rs350

Commodities Unit Price (Rs)

INT’L MARKET

Energy Price (US$) %Change

Agriculture Price (US$) %Change

Industrial Metals Price (US$) %Change

Copper Future (Lb) 213.5 -0.14

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Edible oil prices still highPRALHAD RIJALKATHMANDU, APRIL 6

Prices of edible oil, among other daily essentials, have continued to remain high even as the blockade has ended and supplies have resumed.

Retailers said they were not receiving adequate quantity of edible oil. “We are not sure when the prices will come down to pre-blockade levels,” said Hemanta Parajuli, proprietor of Pratham Kadhyanna store in Kathmandu.

However, manufactures say they are forced to jack up the pric-es due to high transportation costs and high demand in the market.

After complaints from stake-holders, the Department of Supply Management (DoSM) on Wednesday initiated a probe into the price hikes and shortages of essential goods.

The department has summoned manufacturers, distributors and

dealers, seeking information about cost price, maximum retail price and inventory at hand.

Edible oil prices saw a substantial increase during Tarai unrest. Mustard oil, which

used to cost Rs140 per litre before the blockade, reached as high as Rs260 per litre. Now, it is stable at Rs160.

However, retailers said their stocks were depleting fast and the

suppliers are hinting at a possible short supply in the near future.

“The prices are likely to soar if the inventory depletes at the cur-rent rate,” said Ishwor Shrestha, an oil and sugar trader. “However, we not in a position so say at this point of time whether the shortag-es are artificial. We lack enough information.”

The wholesale price of sunflow-er oil jumped by Rs15-20 per litre, the while retail price soared by Rs50-60 per litre.

Oil manufacturers have blamed increase in import costs for the high prices. “A rise in demand and transport costs have pushed up the price of sunflower oil,” said Nepal Vegetable and Ghee Oil Manufacturers Association said in its statement.

Association of Nepalese Rice, Oil and Pulses, in their clarifica-tion to the DoSM, said a post-block-ade disruption in supply of mus-tard oil created shortages in the market, pushing up the prices.