Mumbai: South Korean car maker Hyundai Motor Co.’s India unit will cut production by a quarter from Monday as a spreading global downturn bites its sales, a senior executive said on Friday.
Hyundai expects to sell just 490,000 cars including exports, against a target of 530,000, in 2008 as the industry grapples with falling sales and tighter credit, H.S. Lheem, managing director of Hyundai Motor India Ltd, said.
“We have decided to go in for a two-shift production instead of three shifts now as demand has declined,” he told reporters after opening a new showroom in Mumbai.
— Reuters
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HDFC Bank raises Rs1,728 cr via bonds
Mumbai: HDFC Bank Ltd said it has raised Rs1,728 crore through the private issue of subordinated debt.
On a private placement basis, the bank has issued unsecured non-convertible redeemable subordinated bonds in the nature of debentures, HDFC said on Friday in a regulatory filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
— PTI
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RBI’s third quarterly review on 27 Jan
Mumbai: Amid talks of further easing the monetary policy, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday said it will come out with the third quarterly review of monetary policy on 27 January.
“D. Subbarao, governor, Reserve Bank of India, will present the third quarter review of monetary policy for the year 2008-09 on Tuesday, 27 January 2009,” the central bank said in a statement.
— PTI
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Nov iron ore sales rise as China buys more
Mumbai: India’s iron ore exports in November rose as China increased purchases.
Shipments were at 8.74 million tonnes (mt), compared with 4.14mt in October, the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, a group of iron ore miners, said in a statement on Friday.
Chinese mills are buying more from India because they want suppliers such as BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Plc. to cut prices, said R.K. Sharma, secretary general of the association.
This is a way of putting pressure on Rio and BHP, he said over the telephone from New Delhi.
— Bloomberg
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Tata Steel: land issue delaying Vietnam plans
Mumbai: Tata Steel Ltd said on Friday a $5 billion (Rs23,950 crore) integrated steel plant it plans to build in Vietnam would be delayed as the location for the project was still being finalized.
“The Vietnam government are yet to give us land. They had indicated a plot, but are now changing the location,” Tata Steel spokesman Sanjay Choudhary said.
Earlier on Friday, the ‘Business Standard’ newspaper reported the commissioning of the first phase of the plant, which will eventually have a capacity of 4.5 million tonnes a year, would be put back by at least a year to 2011, quoting an unnamed company spokesperson.
The paper said the delay was due to the large number of projects proposed for an economic zone in the South-East Asian nation.
— Reuters
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Foreign reserves rise $3.6 bn to $254.1 bn
Mumbai: India’s foreign-exchange reserves rose $3.6 billion (Rs17,244 crore) to $254.1 billion in the week ended 19 December, the central bank said.