American President Lines, the largest carrier in the Indian subcontinent-US sea route, withdrew on Tuesday from the Asia-North America Eastbound Rate Agreement (ANERA), the conference of nine shipping liner companies that serve the Asia-US segment. APL’s withdrawal is from ANERA in the sub-continent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). Orient Overseas Container Lines, another member of the conference, is understood to have withdrawn on Wednesday. ANERA members say some more lines, including the Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Neptune Orient Lines, will withdraw from the conference shortly.

5-year tax holiday for Railways too

The Government has extended to the Railways the five-year tax holiday given to private infrastructural investments in other sectors. The Union Budget for 1995-96 had granted a five-year holiday for “any enterprise which builds, maintains and operates infrastructural facilities in the areas of highways, expressways and new bridges, airports, ports and rapid mass transport systems”. The Railway Minister, Mr. C. K. Jaffer Sharief, had sought that the tax-holiday be extended to private investments in Railway works considering that it was a core infrastructure sector.

Telecom talks fail

Talks to end the three-day-old telecom strike received a setback with the second level leadership of the telecom employees federations rejecting the draft agreement worked out by their senior leaders with the Government. The three federations in the telecom sector decided to stick to their “ original demand against private sector entry into telecom sector “, said Mr. O. P. Gupta of the National Federation of Telecom Employees.

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