India, Mexico to discuss feasibility to free trade pact

The Economic Times published on Tuesday 26th of January 2010, in its printed edition a very short article which is quite interesting for people like me that are in the business between India and Mexico:

India and Mexico would discuss the feasibility for a free trade agreement in May to boost two-way trade, a senior Mexican official said on Monday. A high-level joint group on economic and financial matters would have its second meeting in May to discuss the FTA among other matters, the Mexican ambassador to India, Jaime Naulart, said here. "It is at a very nascent stage and we are looking at the feasibility of such an agreement," he said during an interactive session with members of the Indian Chamber of Commerce. Addressing the members of the chamber, Naulart said Mexico saw the FTA as one of the tools to solve the country's economic problems.

This Free Trade Agreement would be a wonderful opportunity that we must take advantage of when it comes. I hope the information will be easily available soon!

The Entrepreneurship Process. Block #1

I received the link to this video through a group of Mexican Entrepreneurs in LinkedIn. It is an interview with Mrs. Silvia de Torres Carbonel, the Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at I.A.E. the leading business school in Argentina. It is in Spanish, but offer below a few notes in English in a point format.

• The Entrepreneurship process is a process started at an individual level, i.e. in the person.
• It is an attitude, not a characteristic of the person.
• It takes you to be alert for opportunities, enthused about them.
• The enterprise is born in the heart, mind... and hands of the entrepreneur. Which need to be able!
• The entrepreneur is a person that generates employment.
• Entrepreneurship is the key for generating employment, especially in developing economies like ours (referring to Argentina, but also applies to India and Mexico, of course)

A successful entrepreneur is:

1. A person that is open.
2. A person extremely flexible in the execution: we don't always have all the resources, we must get them.
3. Knows how to leadership the starting organization.
   

This is the first of 3 blocks.

Letters for registration at FRRO Mumbai

As I said in my previous post, here I give you the links for downloading the templates of letters for registration at FRRO Mumbai. I hope somebody finds them useful:

Request letter for registration at FRRO Mumbai:

http://www.ecam.co.in/EntrepreneurBlog/RequestLetter_Template_FRRO_Mumbai.doc

Undertaking letter for registration at FRRO Mumbai (as per format given to me a couple of days ago):

http://www.ecam.co.in/EntrepreneurBlog/UndertakingLetter_Template_FRRO_Mumbai.doc

They may change one day, but at least for the time being these should work well and you may not need to go more than once if you have everything prepared.

By the way, I forgot to say in my previous post, you need to bring three sets (i.e. two extra copies) of all the papers.

Registration at FRRO

This may not be very useful for most entrepreneurs in Mumbai, but it is part of my life as an Entrepreneur here because of not being an Indian citizen. Besides, I think it can be useful to many other people.

Part of the information that I am going to give here can be found at http://www.immigrationindia.nic.in/

Every person living in India with a visa which lasts for more than 180 days needs to register at the Foreign Regional Registration Office or FRRO. FRRO Mumbai is located very near VT and behind St. Xavier’s college. The exact contact details are:

Telephone No.: 022-22620446 (O) 022-22620721 (Fax)

E-Mail Address:  frromum@nic.in  dcpsb2.frro@indiatimes.com 

Address: 3rd Floor, Special Branch Bldg., Badruddin Tayabji Lane,
Behind St. Xaviers College, Mumbai-400001.

This registration must be done within 14 days from landing in India and must be done at the city where you have your residence.

They often change the papers required, just as it happened this month, and this is what inspired me to write this post in the blog so that those registering can have the latest information. The site http://www.immigrationindia.nic.in/ gives some information in the “Registration Req” link, but is not updated and they don’t give you any templates there which they do give when you are there. Currently, the documents required for Employment Visa are:

• 4 recent passport size photographs;
• Photocopy of photo page and valid Indian Visa page of the passport;
• Proof of residential address in India;
• Request letter
• Undertaking letter
• Contract agreement from employer

The undertaking letter is what has changed recently. Before they had a very small format which was required, later on they added the requirement of an Indian person signing the letter (and you must accompany the letter with an identity proof of that person, such as passport copy), and now they are giving a new template for the letter which must be printed in the Company’s letter head. I will be uploading that template in a future post.

The request letter is for the company to request the registration of its employee. It should mention the passport number and address of the foreigner. I like to include other information as well, just in case, such as visa number and nationality. I will also upload that in the same post as the other.

Make sure you know where the time period of the contract agreement is specified in the document and where are the details regarding salary as this is what they look for and you could save them some valuable seconds by finding it for them.

People wanting to register who have other types of visa, such as student visa, need other documents such bonafide certificates from their institute. I guess they won’t need a contract agreement, but I assume that they also need the undertaking and request letters.

TDS on salary

Calculating the TDS to be deducted from an employee receiving monthly salary could be a little more complicated than doing it for external professional services.

First, it is required to forecast what will be the total gross income of an employee during the whole year. This calculation should include the earning he or she may have got from a previos employeer if the recruitment has been done in the middle of the financial year.

Then, you will need to calculate the liability of tax payment based on the income. For example, a person earning from 1.5 lakhs to 3 lakhs is liable to 10% tax on the amount above the first 1.5 lakhs. Subsequently, there are other slabs at different rates which every year may vary therbexact figures. Thus, it is important to check those slabs while calculating.

Once you know the total tax liability, then you should divide that amount by the nuber of months remaining in the financial year (12 if it is the beginning of the year) and deduct that amount every month.

Remember to file the TDS payments every quarter before the 15th of next month!