FIPB nod for Egmont games distribution...

dutch company egmont imagination's application to the foreign investment promotion board (fipb) to allow it to distribute a slew of interactive media products for children (cd-roms, play stations and tv-video games) and other educational toys and merchandise has been accepted. earlier, the fipb had rejected egmont's application at its august 17 meeting held this year on the ground that retail trade by a foreign company is not currently permitted. the company applied again , but the fipb at its november 29 meeting deferred the proposal by two weeks. however, at its last meeting, the fipb cleared the proposal once the responses of the i&b ministry and the department of secondry & higher education were received, company sources said. egmont india's cfo and finance director ganesh vishwanathan told et that the fipb had wrongly interpreted egmont's earlier proposal as one seeking clearance for retailing educational products and games. we have clarified that there is no direct business-to-consumer trade; rather we will be selling to wholesale distributors, mr vishwanathan said. the company cfo also revealed that the egmont primary play schools with the brandname 'eurokids' were ready to roll out commercially from next june. the 'eurokids' brand had been franchised to 170 such schools so far, mr vishwanthan said. earlier the 100 per cent dutch-owned subsidiary had been granted foreign collaboration approval for publishing walt disney comic books, and other educational comic and story books. this was on condition that there was no periodicy in the publication which would be violative of the 1955 cabinet resultion keeping foreign-owned newspapers and periodicals out the country. egmont had forged a jv with express newspapers, but this had collapsed forcing it to go it alone in india. the new area of distribution of toys, games and multimedia products would take a back seat compared to the company's principal publishing activity, mr vishwanathan said.

FIPB nod for Egmont games distribution...

Dutch company Egmont Imagination’s application to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to allow it to distribute a slew of interactive media products for children (CD-ROMs, play stations and TV-Video games) and other educational toys and ...

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