New Delhi: Moving ahead with its cooperation with the US in the aviation sector, the government is likely to sign a bilateral aviation safety agreement next year to enable certification of each other’s products and technology.
“We are working in right earnest to get the agreement concluded by 2010,” civil aviation secretary M. Madhavan Nambiar said at the ongoing Indo-US Economic Summit here.
In order to conclude the pact, the regulatory authorities of both the countries are already in talks.
The agreement would enable India-made products to be sold globally as the strict American standards are accepted worldwide.
—PTI
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Loans for hotel, hospital not under CRE exposure
Mumbai:The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday proposed to exempt bank loans extended for the construction of hotels and hospitals from commercial real estate (CRE) exposure.
The recommendation was made by the regulator in the draft guidelines on classification of exposures as CRE exposures.
Additionally, the draft proposes to exempt loans extended against the security of factory land and buildings for the purchase of plant, machinery and raw material, from the CRE exposure of banks.
The draft has been released following queries from banks and others on whether certain exposures should be treated as CRE exposure, RBI said.
Also, in the light of switching over to the Basel-II accounting framework, which has specific provisions relating to such exposures, RBI decided to review the definition of CRE exposures, it said.
“If both the repayment and recovery of loan is primarily dependent upon either the level of real estate rentals or the real estate prices, it will be classified as Commercial Real Estate Exposure,” RBI said in its draft guideline. “On the other hand, if the repayment depends on other factors such as operating profit from business operations, quality of goods and services, tourist arrivals, etc., the exposure would not be counted as commercial real estate even if the land and building are taken as collateral and might be used in the recovery of the loan.”
Unsecured exposures where the prime source of repayment has direct correlation with the level of real estate prices and rentals will also be classified as CRE, it added.
—Anita Bhoir
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Pan masala firms underprobe over duty evasion
New Delhi: Pan masala firms have come under the scanner of the directorate of revenues intelligence (DRI) for alleged undervaluation of certain raw materials at the time of import, leading to large-scale duty evasion. Sources in the agency said the matter came to light after the agency raided a leading Jodhpur-based firm which was into production of pan masala.
As per the modus operandi, dubious firms are created in some country other than the place from where the raw materials are sourced, they said.