Thursday, 17 October 2013

Finland hopeful of amicable settlement of Nokia’s tax dispute

Finland has expressed hope that its telecom major Nokia’s tax dispute with the Indian Government will be settled amicably.


Finnish Foreign Trade Minister Alexander Stubb, who is in India with a 30-member strong business delegation, discussed Nokia’s taxation woes with his counterpart Anand Sharma on Tuesday.


Nokia, which sold its handset business to US-based Microsoft last month, is embroiled in a dispute with the Indian Government on a retrospective tax demand of Rs 2,080 crore from the Finance Ministry.

“It was very good to get the arguments on both sides. I am quite confident that the issue will be resolved positively,” Stubb told reporters after the meeting.


It is probably not for me or Sharma to decide on those issues that is being dealt with in normal rule of law in the Indian courts, Stubb added.


The Finnish Foreign Trade Minister’s delegation represents diverse sectors such as energy & environmental technology, mining, metals, construction, information technology, health & well-being and financing. ONGC and Finland’s clean technology firm Chempolis have signed an agreement to produce ethanol, bio chemicals and bio-coal from biomass residual matters that would reduce India’s dependence on imports.


The agreement was signed by Stubb and Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Panabaka Lakshmi.

“We have signed an MoU with a Finnish company called Chempolis. It is for conversion of cellulose into ethanol. We have developed a technology by which all cellulose-based waste products can be converted into ethanol,” ONGC Chairman Sudhir Vasudeva said.





No comments:

Post a Comment