IPO-bound hospitality major OYO has written to the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) requesting it to intervene and investigate the running of the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and order eviction of erring executive committee members. The hotel aggregator urged the MoT to take necessary action against FHRAI's "illegally run" Executive Committee and its members who are working for self-interest instead of that of small hotel owners. The representation by OYO alleged that FHRAI's actions are detrimental to small hotel owners.
The writing has been on the wall for some time and it showed up prominently during the festival-season sales last year, when Meesho toppled Amazon to become the second-largest player in order share. During the sales season, 60 per cent of the orders Meesho received were from tier-4 cities and beyond. According to a report by consulting firm Redseer, festival-season sales last year were driven primarily by tier-2 and tier-3 cities, with 64 per cent of the shoppers coming from those.
A decline in demand from six of India's top 10 import partners -- China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore -- resulted in India's imports hitting a 17-month low of $50.6 billion in January, showed the data compiled by the department of commerce. Shipments from South Korea, Australia, and Singapore declined by 14.1 per cent, 26.7 per cent, and 9.8 per cent, respectively. Among the 10, growth in inbound shipment was seen only in the case of the United Arab Emirates (12.1 per cent), the US (27.4 per cent), Russia (297.4 per cent), and Indonesia (22.9 per cent).
Key drivers of profitability for Zomato has not witnessed remarkable growth, the management believes the venture will turn profitable in the long term.
India added over 1,300 active tech start-ups to its ecosystem in calendar year 2022, taking the total tally to between 25,000-27,000, according to a recent report. The country continues to be the world's third largest tech start-up ecosystem. The Nasscom-Zinnov Indian Tech Start-up Landscape Report 2022 found that India added the second highest number of Unicorns - companies with a valuation of at least $1 billion - in the world, with over 23 added in CY2022.
The US is taking several measures, such as increasing the number of staffers, to further facilitate the issuance of business visas in India, a senior US government official said on Tuesday. "We have also made significant progress by issuing more H1B and L visas in 2022 than we did even in 2019 before the pandemic. "This is a significant improvement. We are in the process of raising our staff," Arun Venkataraman, US Assistant Secretary of Commerce for global markets, said.
Food aggregator platform Zomato has discontinued its 10-minute delivery offering, Zomato Instant, as the business has struggled to grow and faces challenges in turning profitable, media reports said. The company has denied these claims, stating that the business is just being rebranded. This comes as the company's CEO Deepinder Goyal announced 800 job vacancies across 5 roles via a Linkedin post.
The importance of China as India's top trading partner cannot be understated.
As sanctions-hit Russia increasingly relies on consumer products from India, outbound shipments to Russia have started picking up for the second consecutive month in October. This comes after it witnessed contraction for six consecutive months starting March, commerce and industry ministry data showed. During October, India exported goods worth $280 million, up 3.7 per cent as compared to a year ago. It was led by demand for items such as vegetables, tea, coffee, chemicals as well as iron and steel products.
The central government and the Reserve Bank of India have devised a country-specific plan towards implementation of overseas trade in rupee, people aware of the matter said. To start with, a small number of banks will be allowed to manage cross-border transactions in domestic currency with a particular country. "Small countries that are dollar-deficient have shown interest in doing trade in rupee.
'It's a big technology company and may offer good remuneration, but stability in my career is equally important to me.'
The department of commerce has urged the agriculture ministry as well as the diplomatic mission in Tehran to apprise it of details as to why Iranian buyers have stopped import of rice and tea from India, a senior government official said. Exporters said that exports of items such as high quality tea and rice have stopped since last week. As of now, there has been no confirmation from the authorities and the response from the embassy in Tehran is also taking time, they said.
With the fashion world blurring the lines between innovation, technology and reality, shopping is all set to be revolutionised.
If you are a budding developer and interested in Web3, chances are that you will be headed to one of India's largest-ever meetings of Web3 developers, being held by Polygon, a Web3 platform. The company's ongoing "Web3: Made in India Tour" is expected to see close to 4,000 developers coming together at the inaugural Polygon Connect event in Bengaluru on December 1. The event highlights the growing dominance of Web3 developers from India, as well as the sector's rising interest to investors, who continue to invest in startups despite a funds crunch.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed the opening of nine special vostro accounts with two Indian lenders - Uco and IndusInd Bank - to facilitate overseas trade in rupee, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Tuesday. Apart from the domestic lenders, Russia's two largest banks - Sberbank and VTB Bank - are the first foreign lenders to have received approval from the central bank for settling international trade transactions in rupee. "Nine accounts have been opened. One each in Uco Bank, Sberbank, and VTB and six with IndusInd Bank. There are six different Russian banks who have opened special vostro account in IndusInd," Barthwal said.
Negotiations for a trade deal between India and the UK have run into fresh controversy, after the proposals under a leaked chapter of the deal on intellectual property (IP) are believed to put access to affordable, lifesaving generic medicines from India at risk. According to the draft IP chapter put out by an international trade portal bilaterals.org, the UK is seeking continuous extension of patent period and rights through small tweaks in the drug, known as evergreening. This may prevent patents from expiring, impacting cheaper drug availability and its production by Indian generic drug manufacturers.
With the festival sales in full swing, e-commerce firms are ramping up hiring to meet the increasing consumer demand. Close to 300,000 new jobs have been created in the sector so far and over 500,000 more jobs are expected to be added till Diwali, according to a report by TeamLease. The demand for gig workers is, however, not restricted to tier-1 cities. Tier-2 and tier-3 cities have seen an increase of 40 per cent, with a higher demand for delivery workers, according to a TeamLease report.
Flipkart claims that over one billion customers visited its platform during the eight-day-long The Big Billion Festival. Amazon's Great Indian Festival 2022, which will go on for a month, is throwing discounts at customers that can hardly be ignored. But some of the stories that are coming out from these sales are not so great.
The government is targeting export of goods and services worth $2 trillion by 2030.
The Centre is pushing for bilateral trade with Cuba and its settlement in rupee as a part of its strategy to internationalise the domestic currency. A delegation from Cuba, including officials from its central bank, met Indian government officials and banks last month to discuss bilateral trade and settlement using the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) payment mechanism in rupee, said people aware of the matter. Since the Cuban nation has opened up its economy and is looking to implement reforms to attract investments from India, Cuban banks have evinced interest in opening special rupee vostro accounts (SRVAs) with Indian banks.
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