BMW Motorrad slashes motorcycle prices by 10%
MUMBAI: BMW Motorrad, the premium motorcycle arm of German luxury car maker BMW Group, on Friday slashed its prices in India by up to 10%. Prices will be reduced by 10% on products across categories such as Adventure, Sport, Touring, Heritage and Roadster with immediate effect, it said in a release. “With the new attractive price-value proposition, we will offer bike enthusiasts an opportunity to experience unrivalled and exceptional motorcycling,” BMW Group India president Vikram Pawah said.
COCA-COLA INDIA TO LAUNCH FRUIT VARIANTS OF SPRITE, LIMCA
Coca-cola India Pvt. Ltd plans to launch fruit juice versions of its Sprite and Limca brands in the first half of this year, T Krishnakumar, president (India and Southwest Asia), said on Wednesday. This is the first time CocaCola is looking at bringing extensions of Sprite — its best-selling carbonated beverage brand, and Limca—its third largest aerated drink brand.
The plan to introduce Sprite and Limca extensions comes just months after the American beverage maker launched a variant of Thums Up — its largest-selling cola brand—in November. The extension, Thumps Up Charged, is a stronger version of the 40-year old cola brand.
AMUL, MAKEMYTRIP, THREE OTHERS PARTNER WITH STAR INDIA FOR IPL
Five more brands including toothpaste maker Colgate-palmolive India Ltd, dairy brand Amul and online travel portal Makemytrip have partnered with Star India Pvt. Ltd for the 11th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Since Star India plans to launch IPL on four regional language sports channels, Anil Jayaraj, executive vice-president and head of sales for Star India, said the proposition seems to be a hit with advertisers.
“The brands that have come on board will get to leverage the power of multiple screens, multiple languages and broaden their reach and engagement like never before. Advertisers interest in Vivo IPL continues to be very high and we are in advanced conversations with a number of other categories and brands which we will close over the next few days,” he said.
NASSCOM: SOFTWARE SERVICES SECTOR TO GROW 7-9% IN FY19
India’s software services exports will see revenue growth of 7-9% in constant currency terms in the fiscal year to March 2019, a leading lobby group forecast on Tuesday, as the industry continues to recover from what has been a tough year. The forecast, which was put out at the annual summit of the Nasscom, is in line with the 7.8% revenue growth it expects in the six months to the end of March 2018.
The country’s $154-billion information technology sector has been buffeted by a broader slowdown in technology spending, while uncertainty looms over work visa rules in the US, the biggest market for Indian software services firms.
IKEA INDIA TO INVEST UP TO ₹4,000 CRORE IN MAHARASHTRA
Ikea India Pvt. Ltd, the local subsidiary of Swedish furniture retailer Ikea of Sweden AB, plans to invest ₹3,000-4,000 crore in Maharashtra to set up multi-format stores and experience centres, the firm said on Thursday.
The investment will be deployed over two-three years to build two large stores in Mumbai, a handful of experience centres and Ikea India’s first fully owned distribution centre in Pune, said Patrik Antoni, deputy country manager at Ikea.
A sum of ₹750 crore, out of the total investment, has been set aside to develop the distribution centre. “We are making some head-on investments when it comes to building the logistics because if we want to be affordable, we need efficient logistics infrastructure,” Antoni said, adding the Pune centre will be a large hub connected to smaller distribution centres across India. NEW DELHI: Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, India’s largest drug maker, on Friday said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had made three observations after inspecting its factory at Halol in Gujarat, for failing to meet good manufacturing practice standards.
“The US FDA conducted a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) inspection of Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd’s Halol facility. At the conclusion of the inspection, the agency issued a Form 483 with three observations,” the drugmaker said in a regulatory filing. The inspection was conducted between February 12 and February 23.
The shares ended 5.17% higher to close at ₹570.20 on the BSE on February 23.
Sun Pharma’s US supplies were hit over the past year after the US FDA found violations of manufacturing practices at the company’s Halol manufacturing unit. US FDA conducted its first inspection of the facility in 2014 and another in December 2015. The company was given a warning letter with six observations, preventing it from making fresh filings of new drug applications.
In November-december 2016, Sun Pharma’s Halol unit was reinspected and the US FDA issued Form 483 with nine observations. The FDA inspectors found the drugmaker’s testing programmes inadequate and said the company had failed to report potential contamination issues on time. As per the US health regulator, observations are made in Form 483 when the investigators feel conditions or practices in a facility are such that products may become adulterated or could be injurious to health.
The facility at Halol, one of Sun Pharma’s biggest units, holds the key to its US formulation business. Sun Pharma gets about half of its revenue from the US market and the Halol unit contributes a majority of its drug filings.
Barred from new drug filings in the American market, the company’s US business has been severely impacted in last couple of years. NEW DELHI: Errors in tax return filings are coming in the way of disbursing tax refunds to exporters covered by the goods and services tax (GST) regime, according to Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) chairperson Vanaja N Sarna.
In an interview, Sarna said a third of the total dues to exporters have already been disbursed as the documents are clear.
Claims worth more than ₹4,000 crore for dues under integrated GST (IGST) have been processed, she said. Total IGST refunds due to exporters since July, the first month of the tax, stand at about ₹13,000 crore.
GST Network, the company that processes tax returns under the new indirect tax regime, is unable to process the remaining claims on account of errors and mismatches in the returns filed.