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Almost two-fifths of respondents do not expect industrial growth to slow more than 1 per cent, and the remaining believe the maximum decline to be less than 2 per cent. This is against the actual decline by 3 percentage points in 2007-08 over the previous year. Regarding GDP growth, 86 per cent say any deceleration would be contained at 0.5-1.5 points. Four-fifth of the respondents say they do not expect production to dip while 50 per cent do not expect any impact on their top line growth. There are several reasons to be upbeat. One, the service sector performance continues to be robust, fuelled by transport, communications and trade growth. In the transport segment, expenditure on highways expansion, ports and airports has not been affected since these are long-term investments.

 Two, infrastructure plans are on stream. Even though core sector growth has not been promising for the past few months, the government's intentions to spend and attract up to $500 billion in the next four-five years can itself be an incentive not to abandon production plans. CEOs have called for a special budget for infrastructure on the lines of the railway budget for kick-starting 20 national projects on a high-priority basis to boost core sector growth.

Mall space is expected to touch approximately 60 million square feet by end-2008, says Jones Lang LaSalle's third annual Retailer Sentiment Survey-Asia. This is a quick rise from just about a million sq ft of space recorded in 2002.

WHAT THE BIG GUNS ARE PLANNING

• Reliance Retail is going ahead with plans worth $ 3.77 bn for setting up 205 stores.
  
• Spencer's is planning to set up 500 more stores by June 2008, with $125.89 mn investment.
  
• Hypercity is planning to set up 250 Expresscity stores in the con- venience store format across the country in the next five years.
  
• DLF plans to invest $ 4.02 bn over four years to develop 20 shopping malls across the country.
  
• Israeli mall developer Plaza Center NV plans to invest $1.25 bn over the next five-seven years.

• Vertical structures in malls are not always feasible. Bentel's studies suggest that as you proceed towards each level, there would be 30% less footfalls.As a result, a ground-plus-two structure for malls is the ideal vertical limit that should be aimed at.
  
• Two or three malls in the same area are absolutely acceptable, says Bentel, especially if the catchment area caters to about 20 million people.

• Inorbit Malls at Vadodara and Navi Mumbai
  
• The Oberoi Mall in Mumbai
  
• Reliance marts at Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Jaipur
  
• The Mall of Punjab at Mohali
  
• Mantri Mall,UB City,Mall at Malleshwaram in Bangalore

In a scenario such as the one that Indian retail is witnessing, it is but natural for global firms to eye the sector. So while we have the Wal-Marts and Metro Cash and Carry of the world eyeing this emerging market, closer home, it's biggies such as Reliance, Bharti and DLF who are aggressively laying out plans to expand their retail ventures, giving rise to a need for malls that are aesthetically designed and functional too.

"We saw the opportunity coming about five years back and decided to enter the Indian market," says Darryl Skinner, MD, Bentel Associates Realty Design Consultants Pvt. Ltd., one of South Africa's leading architectural firms, that specialises in mall development and management for the retail sector. While the beginning was a little slow, the past two years have been a lot better than what Bentel, which came to India through a joint-venture with ICS Realty, had expected.

"The growth was slow initially, but we have witnessed a rather meteoric rise in the last two years, where the business grew fivefold," says Skinner, whose firm has some plum projects under its belt right now. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come. With one of its most ambitious projects yet, the Mall of Punjab, an Emaar MGF venture that's coming up in Mohali slated to come up soon and Vijay Mallya's high-end retail mall-UB City-designed by Bente1to open up to the general public in about two months, Skinner says his company has just scratched the surface. "We are working on over 50 projects throughout India and are looking to scale up our operations.

" But while there's no dearth of opportunities for mall designers and developers, it's the basic talent that poses a problem for most global firms that are coming to India for a piece of the mall space ple.

However, the report titled 'SEZs in India: Here comes the Sun' points out that on ground implementation suggests that Pune would lead the list of cities with nearly 23 per cent (23 million sq. ft.) of the total supply estimated to come up by 2010. Pune is followed by Bangalore with 13 million sq. ft. and Chennai with 15 million sq. ft.

The south zone has been the frontrunner of the special economic zone movement in the country accounting for 36 per cent of all approvals coming through, till date. "One state that has clearly dominated the scene is Andhra Pradesh, which accounts for nearly 25 per cent of total notifications. Pockets of maximal activity in the state include the districts of Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam," says the report.

In fact, the supply of new office space supply in the special economic zone space across certain regions in the country is going to far outstrip the fresh supply in non-special economic zone space in the coming years. "This is because building a special economic zone comes out to be 15-20 per cent cheaper than building space for non-special economic zone space," the DTZ report points out.

While IT/ITeS SEZs are the smallest (10-30 hectares of land area), multi-product (over 1,000 hectares) and sector specific SEZs (100-300 hectares) account for most of the largest SEZ developments in the country Hence while the maximum applications processed are for IT/ITeS usage, the total land area under development for them is far lower.

"However, non IT/ITeS SEZs which, on the other hand, are much larger in size and have a larger share of investments compared to IT/ITeS SEZs, will take at least five to seven years more to mature," says the report.

Also with immediate effect, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has barred banks from charging any fees for customers using their own banks' ATMs and cut charges on withdrawal from third-party ATMs to Rs 20 per transaction.

With RBI issuing a diktat that the cost of using third-party ATMs can't be passed on to consumers, banks will have to work out some kind of a transfer-pricing structure to defray the costs of those banks that have made huge capital expenditure. ATM service providers say that banks will have to work out the cost of each ATM transaction and net out the charges they have to pay each other based on their network usage.

Since RBI has not got into the details of how the costs will be shared, banks will have to decide amongst themselves a middle path where banks are not completely discouraged from installing new ATMs and yet banks without any network are not fleeced. In a circular issued to all commercial banks and RRBs, RBI said, "The (ATM) charges levied on the customers vary from bank to bank and also vary according to the ATM network that is used for the transaction.

Consequently, a customer is not aware, before hand, of the charges that will be levied for a particular ATM transaction while using an ATM of another bank. This generally discourages the customer from using the ATMs of other banks. It is, therefore, essential to ensure greater transparency."

The central bank went on to say that in countries such as the UK, Germany and France, bank customers have access to all ATMs in the country free of charge, except when cash is withdrawn from white label ATMs or from ATMs managed by non-bank entities. "There is also a move, internationally, to regulate the fee structure by the regulator from the public policy angle.

The ideal situation is that a customer should be able to access any ATM installed in the country free of charge through an equitable cooperative initiative by banks," the circular said. The service charges for the following types of cash withdrawal transactions may be determined by banks themselves. The central bank has clarified that these guidelines do not apply to cash withdrawal with the use of credit cards and for cash withdrawal in an ATM located abroad.

A pre-budget memorandum submitted to Dasgupta recently by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), recommended the lowering of the VAT rate for locally manufactured products to four per cent.

Several such products like plastic water storage tanks, MS hinges and tower bolts, and asbestos fibre cement sheets among others, attract a VAT rate of 12.5 per cent, which is significantly higher than the VAT imposed on the same commodities in neighbouring states.

Sources in the industry say this existing phenomenon is leading to a loss in the competitive advantage of the products manufactured in the state.

The manufacturers are losing out to products that are imported into Bengal from other states.

While issues such as radiation, rough shortage and fluctuating prices bombard the coloured gemstones industry, synthetic gemstone manufacturers - who for a time struggled for acceptance by both the trade and, more importantly, consumer markets - are experiencing their strongest sales in years.

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The BAL management is understood to have listed about 700 employees who should report for work while the rest will get the wages at the rate of five-and-a-half days a week, at home.

According to experts dealing in labour laws, this is nothing but an unfair labour practice trying to be imposed, equivalent to a lay-off as it goes against the essence of the provisions laid down by the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Bajaj, when contacted, said, "Sorry, no further comment now; there will be more next week.

Ajit Abhayankar, district secretary, CITU, whose organisation has members in the thousands of small scale ancillary units that stand to get hit by the Bajaj move to take production from Pune to Waluj in Aurangabad and to Pantnagar in Uttarakhand, said this was as clear a case of layoff as any as the company has not claimed any recession.

In fact, Bajaj Auto had a very good year as its net profit grew to Rs 1,237.96 crore in 2006-07 from Rs 1,101.63 crore a year ago. With the top line growth being commensurate at Rs 10,834.27 crore (Rs 8,748.38 crore), Bajaj declared a 400 per cent dividend.

Earlier, in a statement issued on Wednesday, Bajaj had said: "Management would be well within its rights to have all such workmen report to the plant, as per their normal shift timings, 5 days per week. However, for the time being, even this requirement is being waived, primarily in the interest of the convenience of the workmen. As such, all workmen will be virtually receiving their normal wages without having to leave home."

In response to a question in the Lok Sabha, finance minister P Chidambaram said there was no indication of entry of terrorist outfits in the stock and real estate markets. ``The government has consulted SEBI and RBI which do not indicate any surreptitious entry into the stock market or real estate markets,'' the minister said.

Chidambaram's comments assume significance since such suspicions were raised by national security advisor M K Narayanan, the man who has access to all the intelligence reports including forewarning coming from foreign agencies.

But that's because occupancy levels in many places are at a point where it is not easy to raise them, forcing hoteliers to look at other ways to boost revenue, say analysts.

Siddharth Thaker of HVS International, a hospitality consulting firm, said in a report that in fiscal 2007, hoteliers' focus had shifted towards increasing revenues at stable occupancy rates. With continued consumer demand, once average occupancies start nearing the 80% threshold, said Thaker, "you can't really go anywhere from there".

Rattan Keswani, executive vice-president of EIH Ltd's Oberoi Hotels and Resorts in Mumbai, said that the company would be redesigning four floors by October in order to attract higher-revenue guests, anticipating a room rate increase of 20% across the company's two hotels in Mumbai in the coming months.

HVS reported that occupancies in markets such as Bangalore, Kolkata Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai all approached or exceeded 80% in fiscal 2007.

India's hotel industry has seen a steady increase in room rates, revenues and profits since fiscal 2002, driven by high GDP growth and increased tourist arrivals. For example, EIH, the primary owner of the Oberoi Group of Hotels, reported an increase in revenues of about 150% to Rs1,004.2 crore in fiscal 2007, from fiscal 2002. India re ceived a record 4.4 million overseas tourists in 2006.

The venture, Star Choice, will offer customised finance schemes, one of which has an ultra-low equated monthly instalment (EMI) of Rs 29,999 or a down payment of as low as 5-10% -- for a C Class entry level Mercedes priced in the range of Rs 26-30 lakh, ex-showroom Pune. An EMI in this range is what a buyer of a Rs 10-lakh car pays.

RSB Group, one of the largest engineering and automotive components manufacturing entities in the country that had a turnover of Rs 400 crore, will be using the private equity infusion for capital expansion activities and to grow organically and inorganically through joint ventures and acquisitions.

It has recently acquired Miller Brothers, an auto ancillary based in Michigan, USA. The group is ambitiously aiming to be a $ 1 billion global group by 2013 through both organic and inorganic growth.

"We believe that the auto ancillary and construction equipment sectors in India are high growth areas, driven by increased infrastructure spending, development of roads and highways and rising exports. RSB Group is an established, high quality player well positioned to ride this high growth." said Shahzaad Dalal, vice chairman and managing director, IL&FS Investment Managers.