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One and only container transhipment terminal
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Original post by PLUS @ Skyscraperpage

CIAL scales new heights

Kochi wins best Indian retailer award

CIAL has the best duty free shop

Press Trust of India / Kochi April 24, 2008

The Cochin Duty Free shop at the Nedumbassery airport has won the ‘Best Indian Duty Free Retailer’ for 2007-08 from among 11 international duty free shops in India.

The award, conferred by the UK-based Mars International Travel Retail (MITR), would be received at the Tax Free World Association (TFWA) asia pacific retail conference at Singapore on May 13, CIAL Managing Director S Bharat said at a function at the Cochin Duty Free yesterday.

The Cochin Duty Free shop at the Nedumbassery airport here, which accounts for 30 per cent of CIAL’s annual revenue, has registered a 44 per cent growth in revenue in 2007-08, netting Rs 42 crore turnover against the previous year’s Rs 32 crore, he said. Full story

Training centre for engineering units

Staff Reporter

Stakeholders form engineering cluster

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Proposal to set up oxygen plant

1,300 members pool their resources

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KOCHI: Cochin Engineering Products Consortium Pvt. Ltd., representing nearly 2,000 industrial engineering units in Ernakulam district, has proposed the setting up of a general training centre and an oxygen plant as common facilities to suit the requirements of all engineering units in the State.

The detailed project report was prepared with help of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat). Besides, Friday Solutions, a project consultancy based in Chennai that conducted a benchmark study of the engineering clusters in Kerala, is also preparing project report, said K.T. Jose, Cluster Coordination chairman.

The Engineering Products Consortium has been built on the collective strength of its 1,300 members who have pooled their resources, know-how and good will to surmount odds in the path to realising their business potential. There are a total of 1,800 engineering units in the district. Some employ only four people and others as many as 40. The engineering clusters in the district — including the Ernakulam Engineering Cluster which has started a raw materials bank in North Paravoor — have become a reality to boost the business potential of the units.

The organisational network of The Kerala Industrial Engineering Workshops Federation came handy in establishing the engineering clusters.

The raw material bank in North Paravur, called Parur Iron and Steel Cluster Pvt. Ltd., is now in a position to supply construction materials such as shuttering plates, scaffolding materials, lifts, trolleys, modern gates, standard models of grills, garden furniture, roofing and piling materials, etc.

Mr. Jose said the proposed training centre would have sophisticated machinery that will enable the cluster members to take up specialised jobs for Cochin Shipyard, hydro-electric projects, etc.

The oxygen plant will help meet shortage of industrial gas supply. The capacity of the proposed unit will be 400 cylinders a day, which will just be enough to meet the requirements in Ernakulam district, said Mr. Jose.

The Hindu

4-lane connectivity works to Vallarpadam from Kalamassery
is well on course. With 98% of the land required already with
NHAI the work will be finished on time.
Now govt has to complete acquisition of land for rail link.
Only 67% of land has been acquired for this so far. The rest
must be acquired without delay and handed over to RVNL.

Vallarpadam road works progressing
Staff Reporter

KOCHI: The work on the road connectivity for the proposed Vallarpadam International Container Transhipment Terminal is progressing well and is on course to be completed by November 2009, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) sources have said.

Talking to The Hindu, a senior official of the NHAI, which is the implementing agency of the road connectivity, said that works have been progressing smoothly for the last one month. “Almost all teething problems have been resolved,” he said.

Preparatory works like piling and laying the foundation of bridges and flyovers had already started. Initial work on the flyovers at the beginning of the project area was already underway. Road works had also been started in right earnest, the official said.

He said that the onset monsoon would have little effect on the progress of the work, as NHAI plans to continue with the foundation works during the period.

Meanwhile, the revenue officials said that 97.5 per cent of the land out of the total 43.75 hectares required for highway connectivity had been acquired. Full story

Fresh investments

Training centre for engineering units

Staff Reporter

Stakeholders form engineering cluster

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Proposal to set up oxygen plant

1,300 members pool their resources

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KOCHI: Cochin Engineering Products Consortium Pvt. Ltd., representing nearly 2,000 industrial engineering units in Ernakulam district, has proposed the setting up of a general training centre and an oxygen plant as common facilities to suit the requirements of all engineering units in the State. Full story

Phoenix Group forays into business hotels

Gayatri Vijaykumar - Bangalore

The Phoenix Group has announced plans of setting up a five-star deluxe property in Bangalore. Scheduled to open in December 2008, this would be the group’s first venture into the business hotel category. The 160-room property will also offer conference facilities, four F&B outlets, a bar and a signature spa.

The Phoenix Group is also actively looking at entering the tier II and tier III cities. Phase II of its plans will look at setting up properties in Kochi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. Full story

Agilent coming to Kochi

Agilent arm

Bangalore: A subsidiary of US-based measurement tools firm Agilent Technologies Inc., Agilent Technologies International Ltd, plans to collaborate with leading Indian universities to scout for research ideas that can be converted into market opportunities.

In keeping with its new strategy, Agilent plans to move to tier-II cities such as Pune, Kochi and Visakhapatnam, as it increases its headcount from 1,600 now to 2,000 by 2009.

“These are all high technology positions,” said Valluri. Full story

മനോരമ 26/04/2008

Read our earlier post on this project.

The mega electronic hardware SEZ, reported earlier,
is set to be built at Kochi.

State to set up SEZ for electronics hardware

Staff Reporter

Preliminary work on SEZ has been completed: Karim

— Photo: H. Vibhu

Traditional start: Industries Minister Elamaram Karim inaugurating a workshop on ‘Electronics hardware industry – Advantage Kerala’ in Kochi on Friday.

KOCHI: A Special Economic Zone exclusively for electronics hardware will be set up in Ernakulam district. Preliminary works on establishing the SEZ had been completed, said Industries Minister Elamaram Karim. He was inaugurating a workshop on ‘Electronics hardware industry – Advantage Kerala,’ jointly organised by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation Limited and the Electronic Industries Association of India here on Friday. Full story

Photo CIAL WEBSITE ARCHIVES
CIAL at Aerodrome Conference 2008
Cochin International Airport made its presence felt at the Aerodrome conference 2008 at Pragati Maidan , NewDelhi. S.Bharath, Managing Director, CIAL gave a presentation at the conference about the topic “AIRPORT AS AN ECONOMIC GATEWAY “. He explained CIAL’s future plans and Aerotropolis concept . CIAL has put up stalls showcasing its strengths and traditional kerala styles.

COCHIN AIRPORT NEWS

The world’s finest in living spaces. At Marine Drive, Cochin(KOCHI).

Dewa Royale is a premium apartment project coming up on a 6-acre waterfront property at Marine Drive, Kochi. The apartment project itself will be the first stage of a groundbreaking, multi-phase development – including an exclusive shopping mall and a world-class hotel – which the company plans to execute on its 18-acre property at Marine Drive.

DEWA PROJECTSKochi (PTI): Leading real estate and infrastructure development group, Dewa Group is foraying into the real estate sector in Kerala with a Rs 3,000 crore project, which includes a super luxury apartment complex.

The complex ‘Dewa Royale’, spread across six acres of premium property at the Marine Drive in the city, will be launched on Saturday, Group Chairman K Venugopalan Nair told reporters here on Thursday night.

The group would set new benchmarks for residential space creation in the state in terms of quality of construction and construction material, he said claiming it would be the first apartment venture in the country, which would be providing a 10 year warranty for the entire complex.

The warranty would be applicable for electrical installations, bathing systems and a slew of instruments, which includes even screws used for fixing doors and windows.

The entire project will come up in a 22.5 acres land. The first phase, being built at an estimated cost of Rs 1,500 crore, will have six towers comprising 400 apartments surrounded by four acres of landscaped garden.

This is expected to be ready by 2011, Nair said adding each apartment would be approximately priced at Rs 3.25 crore.

The project also includes a five star hotel and a convention centre.

Dewa Projects Private ltd is a venture promoted by a group of NRIs based in Kuwait.

The group and its allied companies had substantial real estate holding in the major cities of India, including Bangalore, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, he said.

The Hindu

Kochi wins best Indian retailer award

CIAL has the best duty free shop

Press Trust of India / Kochi April 24, 2008

The Cochin Duty Free shop at the Nedumbassery airport has won the ‘Best Indian Duty Free Retailer’ for 2007-08 from among 11 international duty free shops in India.

The award, conferred by the UK-based Mars International Travel Retail (MITR), would be received at the Tax Free World Association (TFWA) asia pacific retail conference at Singapore on May 13, CIAL Managing Director S Bharat said at a function at the Cochin Duty Free yesterday.

The Cochin Duty Free shop at the Nedumbassery airport here, which accounts for 30 per cent of CIAL’s annual revenue, has registered a 44 per cent growth in revenue in 2007-08, netting Rs 42 crore turnover against the previous year’s Rs 32 crore, he said.

An additional 5,000 square feet of duty free shop space would be added at CIAL’s new international arrival terminal getting completed soon, he said.

Many promotional schemes launched by the Duty Free had helped boost its sales, of which foreign liquor accounted for a major chunk, he added.

Business Standard

RDS in tie up with Rajagiri to launch this
township at Kakkanad with a built up area
close to 900,000 sq ft.
It has a 36 storey twin tower of 540,000 sq ft
and a commercial complex of 340,000 sq ft
with a Hotel and a Mall cum Multiplex.

Another view

All rights reserved : RDS projects

Never mind the quantity, India shows, it is the quality of ideas that matters

Stephen Manallack

April 24, 2008

AS WE look at the sheer volume of ideas in the 2020 Summit, perhaps we should consider that the Indian Government has supported an economic miracle simply by adopting two ideas — building the world’s cheapest telecoms sector and backing public-private partnerships (PPPs) in aviation.

After the summit, can we, like India, identify the two or three big drivers of change and clear their path?

India took a big decision on telecommunications — realising that it could not afford the infrastructure for land lines — opting for the lowest-cost mobile telephones combined with the fastest internet in the world. In an instant, India was open for business.

The effect has already been huge, with about 8 million new mobiles sold each month, and with 300 million users.

Facing the need to help business travel and trade (and facing a growing host of overseas visitors), India realised that it could not afford to own and run its own infrastructure, so it turned to public-private partnerships (PPPs). The modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports plus the new Hyderabad and Bengalooru airports are prime examples. India’s first PPP airport was Cochin in the southern state of Kerala, and this has made profits since opening in 1999, with profits today at 35%.In the past year 96 million passengers flew in India — just four years ago the number was only 48 million. By 2010 there will be 145 million passenger flights a year.

Both of these were big ideas — telecoms allowed India to leap across 50 years and become a leader in the field, while aviation meant a diverse and disorganised country could come together.

Foreign investors are racing into India, with the smart money moving into new areas. Early investors went for the technology sector, but new money is also going into real estate, infrastructure, media and health care.

This is where the 2020 Summit missed one big idea — while we trade with most of the world, could we benefit from a special focus on all aspects of our relationship with India? A bank of friendship already exists and it is time to build new forms of regular business leadership dialogue — perhaps, Indians being even more sports mad than we are, held in conjunction with major sporting events.

As India has shown, building the future can come down to two or three core ideas, and one of those could be to tie our future much more closely to South Asia.

Stephen Manallack is director of the India Australia Financial Forum and secretary of the Australia India Business Council (Vic).

Austrailian Business Day THE AGE