Philippines challenges India for outsourced dollar
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It's dusk in the Philippine capital  Manila and the five-storey office of Advanced Contact Solutions  Inc. (ACS) is beginning to fill up.
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Asia-Pacific leaders will face challenges posed by a wave of bilateral free trade agreements when they meet for their summit in Chile Saturday.
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An Indian NGO (non-government organization) called Telecom Watchdog has filed a petition with the High Court of Delhi, alleging that foreign shareholding in mobile services operator Hutchison Essar is in breach of the Indian government's regulations on foreign direct investment (FDI).
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New venture in India raises questions about the evolution of offshore outsourcing.
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Investor's Business Daily - A mix of low-cost labor and high-quality software and services has proved a bonanza for outsourcing firms in India, sending American rivals IBM  , Accenture   and others scrambling to cash in.
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Reuters journalists are said to be close to striking over the outsourcing of reporting jobs to India.
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(InfoWorld) - Export revenue of a large number of Indian outsourcing companies was brought under the tax net in the country's federal budget. The tax could be the first of measures by the government to reduce tax benefits for the country's outsourcing industry. Prices that outsourcers charge their customers are unlikely to go up as a result, but profit margins will be affected, said N. Ramachandran, chief financial officer of outsourcer iGATE Global Solutions. In his budget speech before India's Parliament Wednesday, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram announced the decision to extend a minimum alternate tax (MAT) to income that is currently covered under tax exemptions. There are other tax issues looming for the Indian outsourcing industry, consisting of software services, business process outsourcing (BPO), and call center companies. A large number of the operations of these companies were set up under an export-promotion scheme called the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), which entitled them to tax breaks under the Indian Income Tax Act. However, the STPI scheme ends next year. Although the industry and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) have asked for an extension of the scheme for another 10 years, the finance minister made no reference to this request in his budget speech. The imposition of MAT is disappointing, as is also the absence of any announcement on the continuation of tax benefits beyond next year, said Ananda Mukerji, managing director and CEO of Firstsource Solutions, a BPO company in Mumbai. If the STPI scheme is not renewed, outsourcing companies will have to locate themselves in special economic zones (SEZs) for tax benefits. Under the STPI scheme they could locate their facilities where it was most viable for them from the point of view of cost and availability of staff, Ramachandran said. A small group of executives in India's outsourcing industry, including N. R. Narayana Murthy, chairman of Infosys Technologies, believes that the outsourcing industry is now large enough to pay taxes at levels similar to other industries in India. The finance minister has also brought employee stock options (ESOPs) under a fringe benefit tax. This move will make current ESOPs expensive, and will make it difficult for the IT industry that uses ESOP as a major tool to attract talent, said Deepak Ghaisas, CEO of the India operations and chief financial officer of i-flex solutions ltd., a financial software company that is majority owned by Oracle. The focus of the budget this year was on the agriculture sector, where growth is faltering. India's gross domestic product is forecast to grow by 9.2 percent in the year to March 31, with 11.3 percent growth in the manufacturing sector, and 11.2 percent growth in the services sector. Growth in the country's agriculture sector is likely to be only about 2.3 percent. There are about 115 million families engaged in agriculture in the country.
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Local and foreign banks are aggressively peddling credit card accounts in India, but converting Indian consumers to plastic has proved more difficult than expected.
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India's premier software body has said outsourcing of engineering services by global firms presented the country with a 40-billion-dollar opportunity.
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The Philippines is able to service its debt, the government said Tuesday, as officials scrambled to reassure jittery investors a day after the president rattled the markets by saying the country was in the throes of a fiscal crisis.
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Asia's superrich are grappling with an enviable new challenge: how to give away their billions
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Local businesses that depend on an influx of international travelers are monitoring the dollar's recent struggles like sailors scanning the clouds before they put to sea.
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Global finance chiefs sought on Friday to put pressure on China to let its currency rise in value to ease global trade imbalances and also aimed to craft a message to soothe turbulent financial markets.
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Get INQ7 breaking news on your Smart mobile phone in the Philippines. Send INQ7 BREAKING to 386. THE WORLD BANK said the Philippines&#39; continuing fiscal weaknesses pose a major threat to the sustainability of its economic growth.
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The countryâs rich natural resources and skilled workforce, coupled with improved business climate, could turn the Philippines into an investment haven in Asia, but, so far, the trouble-plagued country has failed to communicate these qualities
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(InfoWorld) - The appreciation of the Indian rupee against the U.S. dollar is affecting the margins of Indian outsourcers, the president of a trade association said Thursday. It's a difficult time for Indian outsourcers as they are already struggling with rising staff salaries, Kiran Karnik, president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), said Thursday. The rise of the rupee against the dollar has Indian outsourcing companies worried, as two-thirds of their business comes from the U.S. The rupee has appreciated against the dollar by about 8 to 9 percent in the last three months, Karnik said. A rising rupee has pushed down exporters' rupee revenues, even as their costs locally go up, he added. To help firms cope with the currency issue, NASSCOM is asking the Indian government to restore some of the export incentives that were earlier provided to Indian outsourcers. However, the government may not be in a mood to extend incentives to the outsourcing industry, which is generally seen as one of the more successful sectors of the Indian economy. Export revenue of a large number of Indian outsourcing companies was brought under the tax net in February after India's Finance Minister P. Chidambaram imposed a minimum alternate tax (MAT) on income that was covered under tax breaks. A large number of the operations of Indian outsourcing companies were set up under an export-promotion plan called the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), which entitled them to tax breaks. But the STPI plan ends next year. Companies seeking tax benefits now have to move their operations to special economic zones, something that's not feasible for outsourcing firms, which have operations in multiple locations close to where staff are available. NASSCOM wants the STPI plan extended, and the MAT rolled back in the wake of the rupee appreciation, Karnik said. India's Minister for Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath promised earlier this week a package for exporters, in the wake of the appreciating rupee, but didn't outline specifics.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Pacific Rim finance ministers called on   Friday for some emerging Asian economies to show greater   currency flexibility to address global imbalances and for the   group to work toward reviving world trade talks.