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• India's ITC to Tap `New Areas' in Consumer Products (Update2) 

ITC Ltd., India's biggest tobacco maker and second-largest hotel operator, plans to tap ``new areas'' in consumer products to cut dependence on its tobacco business, which faces high taxes and advertisement curbs.

The Kolkata-based company plans to sell ``fast-moving consumer goods,'' Chairman Y.C. Deveshwar told reporters in New Delhi today, without specifying the products or by when it plans to start selling the new products.

ITC, set up in 1910, has in the past six years added businesses such as food, matches, apparel, deodorants, greeting cards and rural retail stores to reduce its reliance on tobacco, which contributes to about half of sales. Analysts such as Abhijeet Kundu expect ITC to start selling soaps and detergents, putting it in direct competition with the local units of Unilever and Procter & Gamble Co.

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