The Union Finance Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has said that with the comfortable foreign exchange reserves position and the accelerated pace of exports, the Government plans to roll back the restrictive import policies and make the rupee convertible on the current account in two years’ time. Addressing a meeting convened by the Kerala Industrial Infrastructural Development Corporation (Kinfra) and CII today, he said with the licence-permit raj behind them, States would have to compete to attract private investment. There was no dearth of resources for constructive investment, Dr Singh said. He pointed out that Indian companies had mobilised about Rs. 24,000 crores from the international capital market last year, a substantial jump from the Rs. 4,000 crores mobilised four years ago. He warned that deployment of Indian as well as foreign capital would be guided by the rates of return possible from each industry and industries would be located suitably.

Boots gets the RBI boot again

It’s a case of being twice unlucky. Boots Pharmaceuticals Ltd.’s application for approval of the preferential allotment of 18.3 lakh shares at a price of Rs. 110 per share to its U.K. parent has been rejected twice by the RBI but approved by the Secretariat of Industrial Approvals in the Industry Ministry. In a letter dated July 6, 1994, RBI rejected the application made by Boots and asked it to submit a fresh application in keeping with the revised June 3 guidelines requiring companies to make such allotments at market-related prices. Making a fresh application under such terms (the six-month average market price) would mean a substantially higher price.

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