Daily News Roundup - Aug 22 2013

NALCO plans to raise its alumina exports by 40% to 1.4mn tons this financial year. (BS)

Tech Mahindra, which merged Mahindra Satyam with itself a few months ago, is in the process of transferring three special economic zones that were allotted to the latter before merger. (BS)

ICICI Bank has raised fixed deposit rates by up to 0.75% across select maturities. The bank has raised interest rate on term deposits with 46- 60 day maturity by 0.75% to 7%. (BS)

Indian Oil Corp will invest about Rs80bn to expand capacity at its Koyali oil refinery in Gujarat to 18mtpa by 2016-17. (ET)

ONGC’s decision to use the surplus infrastructure of Reliance Industries’ KG-D6 block will help the state firm cut costs by 40% and significantly speed up development of gas fields to produce up to 9 mmscmd. (ET)

Tata Steel Thailand said it foresaw a high demand for its products due to the country’s planned US$70bn investment in infrastructure projects. (BS)

Reliance Industries finalised terms with a consortium of leading banks to raise US$1.75bn by way of overseas borrowings. While US$1.2bn will be used to refinance a five-year, multi-currency facility, US$550mn of new money will be repayable after seven years. (ET)

Forward Markets Commission has sent a strongly-worded letter to the NSEL board asking it to take action against the defaulters. The FMC wants all the commodities that were offered as collateral by the defaulters to be auctioned. (BL)

Welspun Energy Ltd unveiled a 55-MW solar plant in Rajasthan. (BL)

Shareholding in GMR Holdings, the apex decision-making body for the GMR group, including GMR Infra, has been divided equally among four key trusts — one each owned by Group Chairman GM Rao, his two sons and son-in-law. (BS)

Federal Bank has increased interest rates on domestic and non-resident deposits. The bank has raised domestic term deposit rate by 150 basis points and will now pay 8.50% on these deposits maturing in 60 days to 119 days. (BS)

HDFC Bank Ltd announced the launch of 11 mini branches in rural locations across Andhra Pradesh. Each mini branch, comprising two persons, will complement the banks existing traditional branch set up in the state, allowing it to reach out to more people in rural geographies. (BS)

Economy Snippets
The members of the RBI’ s technical advisory committee on monetary policy has raised concerns on the government’s ambitious Food Security Bill, on the ground that it would exert pressure on food inflation. (BS)

A panel comprising representatives of department of space, defence ministry, telecom department and telecom sector regulator is considering a proposal to free up 80 MHz or "units" of airwaves in the S-band for fourth generation wireless broadband services. (ET)

Foreign direct investment flows into the country increased by about 16% to US$1.4bn in June. In June 2012, the country had received FDI worth US$1.24bn. (ET)