India to head IRSG

Last Updated : 15 July 2011 at 17:00 IST

KOTTAYAM(Commodity Online): India has been elected as the new Chairman of the International Rubber Study Group (IRSG). The decision was made unanimously in the meeting of the Heads of Delegations (HOD) held at Singapore on 14 July 2011.

Head of the Indian delegation to IRSG, Sheela Thomas, Chairman of the Indian Rubber Board, will officiate as the Chairman of IRSG representing India. She will remain as the Chairman of the Group for the next two years.

The meeting was part of the 107th Group Meetings of IRSG held from 11 to 14 July 2011. The position of Chairman became vacant as Cote' d Ivoire completed two years as Chairman. EU was elected as the new Vice-Chairman for the next two years.

Members opined that India, being both a producer and a consumer of rubber, would be in a good position to protect the interests of both producers and consumers in IRSG. Apart from Chairman, Rubber Board, the Indian delegation to the IRSG Group Meetings included Mr. J.B. Upadhyay, Under Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Mr. Toms Joseph, Deputy Director, Rubber Board.

Another major development in the meeting was the adoption of a revised constitution for IRSG. The Group was formed in its present form in 1944 and the constitution was formulated then. The headquarters of the Group was shifted from London to Singapore in 2008.

This necessitated changes in the constitution with regard to administrative and logistic matters. There was also need to change the structure of the organisation, its work pattern etc according to the changing trends in world rubber industry, developments in commodity organisations and requirements of stakeholders.

During the last three years several meetings were held to negotiate a revised constitution. Finally in a meeting of HOD held in November 2010 in Singapore, a revised text was accepted by the member countries. This revised text had to be approved by the governments of member countries before formal adoption. Govt of India accorded approval for the revised text in February 2011.

The revised constitution was formally adopted by the HOD meeting. Members hoped that the provisions in the new constitution would provide the leverage to the member governments, secretariat and Rubber industry as a whole to participate more effectively in the Group for common benefit.

The HOD also took several decisions to move the Group forward and make it more useful to rubber industry stakeholders. One of the important decisions was to organise the World Rubber Summit as a mega event in Singapore during the next three years on an annual basis. The Summit scheduled to be held in May 2012 would be organised by IRSG in association with International Enterprise, Singapore. The rubber industry stakeholders would have opportunity to be co-sponsors.

In the HOD pre-meeting held on 11 July, the member countries highlighted the relevance of the Group as it is the only forum where NR and SR producers and consumers can come together for discussing issues of mutual interest. It is also the only comprehensive source of rubber statistics in the world. Further it is the only International Commodity Body approved by Common Fund for Commodities for development financing in rubber sector. The communication circulated by chairman of the Indian Rubber Board among member countries, substantiating the relevance of the organisation and boosting the morale of the prevailing members was highly appreciated in the meeting.

The meeting of the Industry Advisory Panel (IAP) held on 12 and 13 July was attended by stakeholder representatives from public and private sectors. The members of the IAP coming from member and non-member countries strongly supported the work programme of IRSG.

There are three major international rubber organisations viz., ANRPC, IRSG and IRRDB. The first two are intergovernmental and the third one is a network of research institutions in the rubber sector in different countries.

The new Chairman of the Group, Mrs. Sheela Thomas, while presiding over the meeting of the HOD, highlighted the need for increased coordination among these organisations. She said that there should not be duplication of work among the organizations and the synergy of expertise of the three organisations would be appropriately utilised for the benefit of rubber industry.

The next meeting of the HOD will be held in Singapore in May 2012 in conjunction with the World Rubber Summit.

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Iran to continue oil supply to India despite payment issue

Last Updated : 04 July 2011 at 23:10 IST

TEHRAN (Commodity Online) : Ending all speculations, Iran reaffirmed its commitment to supply Crude Oil to end despite long standing payment issues.

According to The National Iranian Oil's Company (NIOC) Iran had no intentions to stop oil exports to India although it sent warnings to refiners that it could do so.

Reports last week said Iran threatened Indian refiners that it would cut its oil supplies in August if those refiners didn't pay the unpaid bills that reached $2 billion.

India and Iran have a running dispute over payments for crude oil imports as the UN sanctions regime has blocked all normal routes of payments. India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, earlier blocked payments through the Asian Clearing Union, a regional facility for payments among member nations for eligible transactions.

Till recently India made use of a German bank account to clear payments owed to Iran for oil imports, but that facility too was blocked by the German government under US pressure.

Iran is the second-largest crude exporter to India after Saudi Arabia but payments have hit hurdles due to international sanctions slapped on Iran over its nuclear programme, which world powers fear masks a military drive.

The annual trade between India and Iran stands at an estimated figure of 12 billion dollars annually, with India purchasing some 400,000 barrels of Iranian crude per day.

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India farm ministry cannot push for exports as FSA in sight: Pawar

Last Updated : 06 July 2011 at 07:30 IST

NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): As India looks forward to enact the proposed Food Security Act (FSA) that is expected to bring 75 % of the country’s population under the food security net, Sharad Pawar, India’s farm minister has retracted on his stance of allowing food grain exports.

He said he cannot “push” the export enactment as the FSA is expected to be presented in the Parliament’s ensuing session.

Earlier the Food Minister of India, Prof. KV Thomas had said that the draft proposal of the Food Security Act will define the quantity of food grains to be distributed.

“Accordingly, for the priority category (BPL: Below Poverty Line), 35 kilogram will be distributed per five-member family and for the APL (Above Poverty Line) category, 3 kilogram will be distributed per person. For the priority category, Wheat would be distributed for Rs 2 a kilogram and Rice would be distributed for Rs.3 a kilogram. For the APL category, 50% of Minimum Support Price will be charged.” Thomas added.

A panel of ministers is likely to meet this month to decide on allowing food grain exports, Pawar said.

India is having 65.47 mn tons of food grains in its granaries as per the recent reports and the governmental ban on food grains is in place since 2007.

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