The 2% excise duty cut announced on Tuesday would have very little impact on the auto industry. The excise duty cut is applicable only to products where the excise duty rate is 10%. Trucks are the only category paying this rate.

The auto industry is one of the hardest hit on account of slowdown. Lower demand and tight finances have impacted sales volumes of all auto companies sharply. The government cut excise duty rates so that the companies can pass on the benefit of rate cut to end consumers, thus boosting demand for the industry.

However, analysts maintain that apart from some impact on commercial vehicle (CV) makers, the move is unlikely to benefit auto companies. The reason?

It will further erode the cost advantage of post-quake units in the district

One man's meat is another man's poison, goes the saying. The Union government's third stimulus package, announced on Tuesday in the form of two per cent cut in excise duty and service tax, to boost the economy may turn out to be exactly that for the industries set up in Kutch district at an investment of Rs24,000 crore after the devastating earthquake of 2001.

NRI entrepreneur's holding firm is on an expansion drive

While the economic downturn may have brought liquidity problems for most of corporate India, NRI entrepreneur C Sivasankaran does not seem to be short of cash.

Indeed, going by the latest action by Siva Ventures, his holding company, is on the verge of a major expansion into the relatively undervalued corporate economy. Sivasankaran is known for buying companies on the cheap and selling them off for much higher valuations after a few years.

Washington  - President Barack Obama met top congressional leaders and economic officials from his administration Wednesday to take the "critical first step" in overhauling a financial regulatory system that has shared blame for the devastating credit crisis.

Obama called for "serious oversight" of the country's biggest financial institutions in future but said there was no intention to stifle market activity.

He said legislation would be drawn up in the coming weeks and months to pull the US agencies out of a "20th century" regulatory structure and prevent another crisis of similar magnitude.

Berlin  - Germany's postal delivery company Deutsche Post has been hit by losses of 1.69 billion euros (2.16 billion dollars) for 2008, the company reported Wednesday.

This is the first time the company has posted an overall loss since the privatisation of Germany's postal industry in 1995.

The high losses were largely a result of the company's loss-making US business arm, as well as deficits at the company's Postbank subsidiary.

Washington  - US central bank head Ben Bernanke on Wednesday rejected the idea that the government plans to nationalize major US banks in danger of collapse, during a second day of testimony before legislators.

The Federal Reserve chairman insisted that President Barack Obama's administration preferred to use public-private partnerships, which were temporary in nature and involved taking only a portion of banks' shares in exchange for emergency government funds.