KOLKATA:
Notwithstanding the steep worldwide decline in business and leisure travel, ITC is planning to open its Kolkata and Upper Worli, Mumbai hotel projects by end of this year.

"The projects at Kolkata and Upper Worli are progressing satisfactorily and are expected to open by end 2002," ITC's head of corporate communications S H Venkatramani said.

He, however, acknowledged that steep worldwide decline in business and leisure travel, combined with the gestation of new properties considerably impacted the results of their hotel's business.

Echoing company Chairman Y C Deveshwar's line, Venkatramani said, "although the market is expected to remain depressed in the near term, the long term potential of this industry in India remains exciting.

"The Indian tobacco giant had reported 17 per cent spurt in third quarter profit after tax, despite domestic cigarette volumes continuing to remain under pressure due to "the steep increase in excise duties imposed in the last Union Budget and the adverse impact on the growing contraband trade in cigarettes.

"Faced with a decline in share of cigarettes in India's tobacco consumption to about 14 per cent and consequent increase accruing to other forms of tobacco consumption, Venkatramani said the company's sustained focus on investment in brands enabled a deceleration in the rate of de-growth during the quarter ended December, 2001.

Venkatramani said that in continuation of the company's strategy to constantly upgrade its product range to cater to a variety of tastes and flavour options, the third quarter witnessed the launch of Wills Navy Cut Lights, the initial market response of which had been "encouraging".

He said the scale up of the Lifestyle Retailing business was on schedule with seven new stores opening during the quarter taking the total operational 'Wills Lifestyle' stores to 29.

About the company's recently launched 'Kitchens of India' range of premium, value-added packaged foods, he said, now the number of items had been increased to three, including 'Dal Bukhara', 'Kundan Qaliaya' and 'Chicken Chettinad'.

Venkatramani said their Greetings Cards SBU, which entered into a strategic alliance with the SOS Children's Villages of India, achieved a significant growth in institutional sales during the quarter.

He said the company's Agri-business was not performing as per expectation mainly due to impact of the crop holiday declared by the Tobacco Board in Andhra Pradesh."While exports of agri-commodities other than leaf tobacco grew by 24 per cent in rupee terms, segment results were adversely affected by the slump in the prices of marine products to their lowest levels in the last ten year," he said.