World Business Briefing | Asia: India: Pressure Grows for Cut in Wine Tariffs
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Pressure mounted to cut import duties on wine and spirits after the United States said it had joined the European Union in asking the World Trade Organization to intervene in the matter. Mariann Fischer Boel, the agriculture commissioner for the union, who was in New Delhi, was set to meet the Indian commerce minister, Kamal Nath, to press the issue. On Tuesday, the United States trade representative, Susan C. Schwab, said Washington had filed a complaint with the W.T.O. on the tariffs, which are seen abroad as unfair trade barriers. Indiaâs basic import duties of 100 percent on wine and 150 percent on spirits are within the W.T.O. limits, but federal surcharges and state-level taxes take the tariff up to 540 percent in some cases.
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China came under pressure on Saturday  to let its currency rise faster to ease imbalances in trade and  capital flows that pose one of the biggest risks to global  growth.
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Media & professional: Â· Shortage of labour threatens crisis for farmsÂ· Squeeze may put more imported fruit on shelves
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French winemakers are beginning to claw back their dominance of the global wine market after years of problems in responding to innovation from the New World.
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The Indian economy is likely to be in the grip of inflationary pressures in the coming months even as its growth slows down, according to projections issued by the Reserve Bank of India.
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NEW DELHI: Prices of vegetables, fruits and poultry are likely to escalate by 5-6 per cent as truckers under the banner of the All India Motor Vehicle Transport Congress (AIMVC) went on strike on Saturday.
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French doctors appealed on Monday to President Jacques Chirac to intervene and stop changes in wine advertising rules the physicians fear will lead to more deaths from alcohol-related illnesses and drunk ...
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India said it expected a quick solution to a major row with the European Union and the United States over alcohol duties ranging as high as 550 percent.
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E.U. subsidies have spurred big surpluses and made the continent uncompetitive with "New World" wines. Now reform is afoot
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A wine glut in the US has hit profits at beer and wine company Foster&#39;s during the first half of 2004. The Australian company has been looking to expand its wine business but suffered as a surplus of US grapes forced many producers to cut prices.
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The rise of the Indian rupee against the U.S. dollar is affecting Indian outsourcers.
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The government offered tax concessions to exporters and proposed the creation of free trade zones in a plan unveiled Tuesday aimed at doubling India&#39;s share of global trade in five years.
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The winding lines of shipping  containers outside Casella Wines may mark the high-point of  Australia&#39;s A$3 billion wine export market as drought and  possible climate shift bite.
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Science & environment: White House wants more from India and China but future negotiations to achieve cuts are made difficult
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A protracted dispute over undefined borders and trade gap will be the focus of a three-day state visit to China by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, officials said.
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HOSKOY, Turkey  - As harvest arrives, Cem Cetintas tends lovingly to his vines, hoping they yield wine popular with foreign palates to boost his exports in the face of a harsh climate in the Turkish market.
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(InfoWorld) - Putting new restrictions on H1-B visas in the U.S. would be a barrier to trade, the president of a large Indian trade association said Wednesday. The remarks come in response to an inquiry by two U.S. senators into alleged misuse of the visas. Trade between the U.S. and India is two-way, and U.S. companies like Dell , Microsoft, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard are benefiting from higher sales of computers and software to India's IT industry, according to India's NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies). NASSCOM made public on Wednesday contents of a letter about the issue, which it sent to U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Richard Durbin, who are investigating the alleged misuse of H1-B visas. It appears that companies are using H1-B visas to displace qualified, American workers, Grassley said in a statement earlier this month. New provisions proposed by the senators to ensure that H1-B visas are being used to meet a worker shortage and not to replace U.S. workers have been included in a bipartisan compromiseÂ immigration bill currently before the U.S. Senate. Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, and Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, earlier this month wrote to nine Indian companies, asking them for details on their use of the H1-B visas. NASSCOM said it had sent letters on behalf of the nine Indian companies to the senators. The nine companies together account for close to 20,000 H1-B visas, the senators said on their Web sites. Among the companies that received these letters were India's top outsourcers Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro. NASSCOM considers the issue of work permits like the H1-B visas and intracompany transfers from India to the U.S. as a trade issue that should not be confused with immigration issues. "We want to avoid this being confused as an immigration issue, particularly because it has come up in an immigration bill," NASSCOM's president Kiran Karnik said. India's minister for commerce and industry, Kamal Nath, has also warned of repercussions on ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations if there were any attempts to restrict H1-B visas. NASSCOM particularly objects to a clause in the immigration bill that prohibits companies from hiring H1-B employees if they employ more than 50 people and more than 50 percent of their employees are H1-B visa holders. This prohibition will affect the U.S. operations of Indian outsourcing companies as often they have to take staff from India to work on clients' projects, according to Karnik. These workers are in the U.S. on H1-B visas because they have the knowledge and experience to handle clients' requirements, Karnik said. It is also difficult for Indian companies to hire technical staff in the U.S., because of a tight labor market, he added. Taking staff from India on H1-B visas is not a way to get cheap labor, according to Karnik. The rules of the H1-B visa program allow H1-B visa holders to change jobs within the U.S., and market forces ensure that wages cannot be artificially suppressed, he added. The H1-B visa is an employer-sponsored, nonimmigrant work visa for a foreign worker coming temporarily to the U.S. to perform services in a specialty occupation. Indian outsourcing companies depend on these visas as a significant proportion of their staff work at client locations in the U.S. NASSCOM and some U.S. technology companies have asked for an increase in the current H1-B visa cap, which limits the number of visas annually to 65,000. In its letter to the senators, NASSCOM also mentioned that the largest outsourcing contracts from the Indian private sector, as also from the Indian government, have gone to U.S. companies. It said Indian students now form the biggest group of foreign nationals studying in U.S. universities, spending an estimated $3 billion a year. India is a major buyer of a whole host of U.S. goods and services, including aircraft, wheat, branded garments, and accessories, and the rapidly growing Indian economy is importing ever-larger quantities of these goods and services, NASSCOM said.