With just a few days left for the budget 2007-8, an ASSOCHAM business barometer (ABB) survey of CEOs reveals that they anticipate a two per cent slash in peak customs duty. The survey also shows that India Inc is looking forward to measures in the budget to give a boost to the farm sector.

A majority of 72 per cent of 150 CEOs and managing directors surveyed by ABB anticipate that finance minister, P Chidambaram may bring about a considerable reduction in the customs duties from a peak level of 12.5 per cent to around 10 per cent to improve supplies of both essential commodities and raw

material for industrial goods.

The survey says that apart from the need to check inflation, another

prime reason why members of India Inc feel that there would be a cut in the peak customs duty is owing to the commitment of the government to bring down the tariff to the Asean level.

A majority of the respondents in the survey, as many as 90 per cent remained optimistic about the liberal offers for the farm sector in the budget. ‘To give a boost to the languishing agriculture sector, India Inc. is hopeful about the increased budgetary allocations for the farm sector coupled with a package of duty cuts for the food processing sector’, said a statement from Assocham.

"Special attention to agriculture in budget is requisite for increasing the productivity and sustaining 9 per cent GDP growth", said Assocham president, Venugopal N. Dhoot.

The survey also reflects that corporate heads are of the view that infrastructure is another focus area for the government. About 63 per cent of the company heads have stated that a good number of tax sops are in waiting for the companies investing in sectors like roads, highways, ports etc. A majority of respondents anticipate a slew of measures to induce rural infrastructure investments.

Seventy Four per cent feel that the investment inducing measures may include tax concessions subsidies and deductions.

Courtesy : Asianage.com

Ms Preeti Malhotra has been elected as president of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI). She is the first woman to be elected as president amongst the premier national professional bodies in India.

Ms Malhotra is director and company secretary of Spice Communications Limited, a cellular service provider. She was vice-president of ICSI in 2006 and the first woman to be elected as ICSI central council member for a three-year term (2004-2006) and was also re-elected. She was chairperson of NIRC of ICSI in 2002.

Ms Malhotra was also a member of the Dr J.J. Irani Expert Committee constituted by the ministry of company affairs.

Courtesy : Asianage.com.

Mobile customers will soon be able to send free SMS, courtesy ‘invertising’. Invertising means ‘invited advertising’, where all the SMS sent will be paid by the corporate houses provided customers allow them to incorporate their advertisements in these messages.

It’s a common practice among customers to delete text messages that don’t carry a personal association. Cellebrum, a value added company has developed a ‘text tag’ approach, in which advertisers message is appended to a personal text message.

For advertisers this mean higher content retention and greater message acceptance. For a subscribers, it means he is able to send free messages. "Our research has shown that 70 per cent of the SMS’ have less than 40 characters so the rest of the space could be used by these advertisers to sent their messages," Cellebrum, COO Saket Agarwal said.

Invertising is targeted towards young subscribers with limited budgets but lots of friends to keep in touch with and of course towards advertisers who are eager to reach the elusive Gen Y and youth markets.

Cellebrum’s mobile ad solution is deployed in the mobile operator’s network and can append messages according to a range of rules, including the subscriber’s opt-in status, advertiser priority and time of day (prime time is typically during lunch and evening). All this while, the subscriber’s privacy is completely respected and guaranteed, because no direct marketing database of mobile numbers is created and there is no need whatsoever for the recipient’s number to be given to the advertiser or any other third party.

"The other option that we are particularly excited about is of eventually using the cellphone, many of which are equipped with global positioning systems, to send ads to consumers based on their location," said a spokesperson from Cellebrum.

Right now Cellebrum is speaking to various corporate houses to use its platform to advertise their products. "All I can say right now is that we are speaking with various FMCG and cola companies on this and they have been very positive in their reponses," said Mr Saket.

He expects this facility to be in place in six months.

Courtesy : Asianage.com