Liffe March cocoa futures closed up gbp 1 at gbp 903 a tonen Tuesday, on price-fixing buying, said traders."Price fixing buying has given support, but it has been driven down by origin hedging," said one trader. At the close, 2,535 lots had been traded, with 76% traded o n the march contract and 12% traded on the may contract. Liffe cocoa remained quiet late tuesday, with outright busi ness thin. Most of the volume was made up of against-actual trades, with 500 lots traded in the march contract early and more traded to wards the close, said traders. An against-actual trade is the closing of a futures positio between short and long holders with the longs taking actual de livery of the commodity ahead of the expiration date. There was a brief rally late Tuesday on the back of trader buying, pushing the price to the day's high of gbp 911. "We saw a brief rally. Somebody had a 100 lots they needed to buy, and that was enough to push the market up," said one trader.

Liffegrains close downn

Liffe wheat futures closed 15 pence lower Tuesday, in extremely quiet trade, with just 19 lots of januar wheat changing hands, said brokers. "Trade (was) restricted to tidying of (the) January positio N prior to tomorrow's (Wednesday's) tender," said ADM Investor Service International Ltd in their daily market report. Brokers said the lack of interestin trade Tuesday, with mos traders still away from their desks for christmas holidays, ha caused prices to drift lower.

The value of the pound did little to influence trade. At 16 18 gmt, sterling traded at dem 2.8115, unchanged from dem 2.8125 traded late Monday. Liffe barley futures closed with no lots changing hands. Matif wheat futures are unchanged at the liffe close, with just 50 lots traded. January and March wheat had traded 25 lots apiece at this time, at frf760 and frf788 a ton, respectively. Cbot wheat futures opened slightly higher Tuesday, supporte D By concerns that cold weather in U.S. Wheat growing areas will da magecrop growth.

Cotton futures settle up

Cotton futures on the New York Cotton Exchange settled slightly higher Tuesday, as the trade houses continued to cover their short positions and locals bought fut ures on buy stops, traders said. The market ended slightly higher as trade houses and U.S. Merchants bought futures in thin trading, according to traders. (closing prices in cents per pound with intra day range).

The trade buying interest reversed the initial speculative selling on the open, when funds sold about 200 lots on March at 60.20 cents a pound, according to another trader. Some traders noted that the market didn't react significantly to the latest weekly spec and hedge report from the New York cott on exchange, released on Tuesday.

The report showed that as of Dec. 24, large speculators held 20,047 contracts of cotton futures long, or 25.8% of the long commitment; and held 35,632 contracts short, or 45.9% of the short commitment.The report was by itself supportive for cotton futuresgiven the large short position of speculators, said Jack Scoville, an analyst with lit price group, a brokerage in Chicago. However, according to another New York-based broker the report showed only a minor fluctuation in the speculative short posit ion, which didn't have a significant impact on the market.

Industry status to mineral growth

The Uttar Pradesh governemnt on Wednesday accorded the status of industry to mineral development activities in the state and offered encouragment to indegenous and foreign capital investment in the area. Announcing the mineral policy here the chief minister Kalyan Singh said the natural resources in the state would be exploited in a scientific and systematic manner keeping on eye on ecological balance during the course of mining.

Detailing about the policy, the chief minister said a mineral development fund would be set up by investing five percent of the total mineral revenue receipts. Referring to the rich mineral potential in the state, Singh said 12districts had been declared as `mineral concentration districts' to exploit the mineral potential optimally. Information about available mineral resources would be made available on internet through UP website so that foreign investors could get proper information he added.

Sea-food processing centres

Kerala has drawn up a major scheme to set up world-class facilities for sea-food processing in five fishery centres across the state with the participation of state and central agencies. Amemorandum of understanding (MOU) on setting up the first project at Arur in Alapuzha district would be signed between the Kerala Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) and Marine Products Export Development Authority (Mpeda)in Thiruvananthapyram tomorrow.

The Arur project, costing Rs 10 crore, would have built-in faclities like roads for movement of containers, uniterrupted power and water supply, customs-excise bonded warehouse, treatment plants, communication and banking facilities, guest house,tool-room and recreation information centres. The facility would aim at attracting investors, as well as creating an atmosphere for processors to work in hygienic conditions, as prescribed by international agencies. A group of seafood exporters under the banner of the seafood exporters' association would also participate in the venture.The MoU would be signed by Mpeda chairman KB Pillai and Kinfra managing director CG Gopala Pillai.

Project for biodiversity

The centre has formulated an All India Coordinated Project to sustain the country's biological diversity and build capacity in taxonomy. The project has been devised by the ministry of environment and forests after identifying critically important areas and gaps in taxonomy work.

The main objective was to survey and identify unexplored and under-explored groups of flora and fauna. Taxonomic expertise and capacity would also be created or augmented with the introduction of new and desirable fields of information, the release said. A network of520 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries have been set up in the country to protect and conserve the biological diversity, including wildlife.

Eco-development activities were also being undertaken in the periphery of the protected areas. During the current plan period an allocation of Rs 520 crore has been made for the year 1998-99 for the wildlife sector. Specific projects were also being operated under the environment ministry, including project tiger, project elephant and project turtle. A series of priorities were chalked out for wildlife conservation during the current plan period, including control of poaching, welfare measures for wildlife staff and eco-tourism.