New Delhi half as expensive as Abu Dhabi and Paris, nearly twice as expensive as Beijing

Nanda: AcceptableColour no bar"If a chap can manage well in India, he can manage well in most places," says Denis Allport, chairman of Metal Box, referring to the induction of P.K. Nanda, former managing director of Metal Box India, on the British company's main board. Nanda took over last week in London as director in charge of the company's overseas division.It now transpires that Nanda's appointment was made after a great deal of heart-searching by Allport and his colleagues on the main board. Apart from the fact that Nanda, 48, has never worked outside India, the board was apparently worried whether an Indian could be acceptable to the company's various subsidiaries around the world.Allport made a special trip to his South African subsidiary to ensure that Nanda would win their full cooperation. "We have brought in a managing director from a foreign subsidiary before. That was from South Africa. The only difference is that he was white," Allport told the Financial Times recently.Nanda will be spending a great deal of his time in the near future visiting subsidiaries and associates around the world. The companies under the umbrella of Metal Box's overseas division (these exclude the US) have always been given considerable autonomy, and Nanda sees no reason to change this tradition. The appointment comes, however, at a critical time for the company.In the last financial year (ended March), trading profits on Metal Box's UK operations slumped to Rs 13 crore (less than half of that of Telco) - from Rs 65 crore in the previous year. Profits on overseas operations rose by just 4 per cent but as a share of total trading profits were up from 51 per cent to 78 percent. "Thank God for our overseas operations," says Allport. These will now be Nanda's responsibility.Silvery streamSmuggling out of silver is big business in China, as it is in India. During the last 18 months, London dealers estimate that as much as Rs 160-crore worth of silver coins have streamed out of China to refining centres in Europe, much of it brought from the mainland by small fishing boats plying illegal trade with Hong Kong. The coins have been extracted out of the ground by a combination of last year's explosion in silver prices and China's booming demand for home electronics.Chinese families have dug-up fathers' and grandfathers' hoards mainly to pay for purchases of foreign consumer goods ranging from TV sets to pocket calculators. These are often smuggled in from Hong Kong on board the same small vessels that bring out the silver. Enormous stocks of silver are, however, still left in China. As the last country in the world to abandon the silver standard.China linked its currency to the metal up to the mid-1930s and for years imported large amounts from the US and Mexico to convert into coins. Total silver stocks in China in 1932 were put at 50,000 tonnes, worth close to Rs 12,000 crore at present prices. Indian stocks of silver are also very large, so large, in fact, that no one has been able to put a price on them.Black is beautiful all overThose who think that black money is a purely Indian phenomenon, might do well to have a look at a large number of reports which suggest that black economy is a worldwide phenomenon, accounting for anything between 10 per cent (in some Scandinavian countries) to 20 per cent in Italy.According to a British report, the 'unobserved' sector in Britain is both so large and volatile as to have wide-ranging implications for government policy. On the basis of calculations of the volume of monetary transactions, Professor Edgar L. Feige of Wisconsin University estimates that a minimum of 15 per cent of UK's national income escapes the tax net. According to him, nearly Rs 48,000 crore - slightly over half of India's national income - was undeclared in 1979. This estimate is actually twice as high as the estimate by Sir William Pile, then chairman of Inland Revenue. Similar estimates have also been made in respect of black or underground economy in the United States.Travel guideFor a business visitor, New Delhi is about half as expensive as Abu Dhabi and Paris and nearly twice as expensive as Beijing, according to the latest guide to business travel costs around the world prepared by the (London) Financial Times.The index is based on three nights bed and breakfast in a first class hotel, three snack meals, two set menu dinners in the hotel, three bottles of house wine, three beers, six whiskies and some taxi rides. Hotel prices vary a great deal from Rs 1,300 a day in Bridgetown, Barbados, to Rs 240 a day in Beijing.Food prices vary even more: a slap-up dinner in Paris can cost up to Rs 500 while a similar - but obviously not quite - meal in New Delhi can set one back only about Rs 60 The only other place as cheap as New Delhi - as far as food is concerned - is Dacca where a good meal costs no more than Rs 18.London used to be the most expensive place for business travellers, but apparently not any more. In the latest ranking, it has slipped to 22nd place. Using London as a base with an index rating of 100, Bridgetown, Barbados, is the most expensive (151), followed by Abu Dhabi (143), Paris (139), Chicago (138) and New York (133), New Delhi has a rating of 69 and Beijing 36.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 12, 2013 16:55 IST--- ENDS ---

Download App

Get 37% off on an annual Print +Digital subscription of India Today Magazine

New Delhi half as expensive as Abu Dhabi and Paris, nearly twice as expensive as Beijing

For a business visitor, New Delhi is about half as expensive as Abu Dhabi and Paris and nearly twice as expensive as Beijing, according to the latest guide to business travel costs around the world prepared by the (London) Financial Times.

PUBLICATIONS

TELEVISION

EVENTS

RADIO

GAMING

USEFUL LINKS

PRINTING

WELFARE

DISTRIBUTION

SYNDICATIONS

WEBSITES

EDUCATION