Reinvent and innovate will be the key mantra for the Indian pharma industry in the New Year as the 'pharmacy of the world' looks to move from volume to value leadership, amid emerging challenges of inflation and pricing pressures in the global markets. While R&D investment, market competitiveness, regulatory scrutiny, and domestic price regulations are expected to shape the growth of generics and injectable products, concerns such as price control and customs duties on medical equipment will continue to bother the healthcare industry in 2023. The industry believes that in view of India's G20 Presidency, digital health innovation, achieving universal health coverage, improving healthcare infrastructure and delivery will continue to be the key driving factors in 2023.
Increase in surcharge will adversely impact fund managers planning to shift to India. As a matter of fact several fund professionals based in India could also relocate to other jurisdictions, resulting in a brain drain.
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday unveiled the prototype of the world's first Bharat Stage (BS)-VI-compliant electrified flex-fuel car, developed by Toyota Kirloskar Motor. The car, which runs on 100 per cent ethanol (E100), is based on the Toyota Innova HyCross. It can cover 40 per cent of its distance on ethanol and the remaining 60 per cent on electric, with the petrol engine shut off.
Aviation watchdog DGCA will conduct a special audit of grounded airline Go First's facilities in the national capital and Mumbai from July 4 to 6 before approving the revival plan for resumption of flights, according to a senior official. Cash-strapped Go First stopped flying on May 3 and is undergoing a voluntary insolvency resolution process. Meanwhile, a senior executive at the airline expressed hope of resuming ticket sales -- which was paused by DGCA following the grounding of the carrier -- from July 7 or July 8 and subsequent relaunch of the operations from middle of next month.
Concessional rate of tax on dividends received by Indian companies from foreign subsidiaries will be done away with from April 1, a change that may hamper global expansion of Indian companies and compel some firms to move their headquarters out of India to geographies such as Singapore and Dubai. At present, dividends received by Indian companies from their foreign subsidiaries are subject to a concessional tax rate of 15 per cent under Section 115BBD of the Income Tax (I-T) Act. The provisions of this section shall not apply from assessment year 2023-24 onwards, according to the Finance Bill.
With the government looking to divest loss-making steel assets, significant interest from secondary players is most likely this time apart from the anticipated list of large integrated primary steel producers, said industry experts. Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL), NMDC Integrated Steel Plant (NISP)-Nagarnar, Ferro Scrap Nigam Ltd and three units of Steel Authority of India (SAIL) - Alloy Steels Plant, Durgapur; Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant, Bhadravati; and Salem Steel Plant, Salem - constitute the divestment list. All the three units of SAIL have been loss-making for more than five years.
IT and ITeS companies accounted for $28.1 billion of the total investment pie during the first nine months of 2021.
The GST revenues for August 2023 have shown a growth of 11 per cent year on year due to increased compliance and less evasion, Revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra said on Friday. The collection from Goods and Services Tax (GST) was Rs 1,43,612 crore in August 2022. "Roughly numbers are in the range of 11 per cent year on year growth as in earlier months," Malhotra told reporters.
Korea's second-largest automaker and Hyundai's sister company showcased a line-up of 16 models from its global portfolio at the ongoing Auto Show
'As regard to specific reference to high net worth individual, the moment we finish the 75th anniversary of India's independence, we shall review and take a call,' Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
More cos could join the likes of Burger King and Antony Waste in giving listing another shot.
India has emerged as one of the top three choices for investments in the next 2-3 years, with more than two-thirds of respondents in a survey of multinational companies (MNCs) citing the country as their number one choice for future investments. According to the FDI survey released on Tuesday by CII in association with EY, about half of the respondents see India amongst the top three economies or leading manufacturing destinations of the world by 2025.
Discussions are said to have been heating up over how long a tax indemnity clause, which is part of such deals, should run, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Auditors seem to have developed a heightened sense of risk and are not content to tick the boxes and sign the papers.
Ruia, a chartered accountant whose business ranged from sugar to textiles and heavy engineering to tyres, refused to comment on queries about his interest in Air India.
The immediate concern for all companies is to prepare themselves - and their vendors and suppliers - for the new GST return filing mechanism, being test piloted from April 1.
More people working in India's technology industry have lost their jobs in the first six months of 2023 than in the corresponding period in 2022.
According to EY's private equity deal tracker, Brookfield-Reliance Jio's $ 3.7 billion deal is the largest ever PE/VC deal in India, surpassing the $ 2.5 billion investment made by Softbank in Flipkart in 2017.
Know what terms like anti-profiteering, CGST, SGST, IGST means in the new regime
For IT services companies, ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) metrics are becoming a crucial component in winning deals as clients are considering sustainability a top priority and are keen to work with partners who are on the same page. "Sustainability is becoming an important part of the client's evaluation. "There is a tremendous focus across the world on sustainability, and it is becoming one of the top five business priorities.
In March 2020, soon after the cessation of airline operations globally and domestic flights within India, many in the aviation sector had written Delhi-headquartered low-fare airline SpiceJet's obituary well before that of most of its rivals. Unlike IndiGo, GoAir (now rechristened Go First), Vistara and even AirAsia India, SpiceJet did not have founders or backers with deep pockets. Although it is the only other listed carrier in India besides IndiGo, it was considered the weakest and the least likely to survive the pandemic. But chairman and managing director Ajay Singh surprised everyone by not only surviving but taking the lead on many fronts. Within a few weeks of the scheduled flight stoppage, SpiceJet was doing as many charter flights as it could get hold of.
PE/VC investments touched a record $11.2 billion in the first half of 2017 against $8 billion in the same period in 2016
Despite the $11.7 billion raised by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) through stake sales, venture investments in 2020 have declined by a fifth to $28.9 billion till September, consultancy firm EY said in a report on Thursday. Since mid-March, coronavirus infections started getting reported in the country, which has now become the second highest globally in terms of numbers. The lockdowns severely dented economic activity, leading to a 23.9 per cent contraction in the gross domestic product (GDP) for the April-June period and expectations of a 9.5 per cent contraction by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for 2020-21.
This year, festive sales are expected to push up the annual gross merchandise value of e-commerce companies to around $38 billion, a 40 per cent growth over the previous year.
GST taxpayers will be required to reverse by November 30 the input tax credit (ITC) claimed in the last fiscal in case their suppliers fail to deposit the due tax by September 30, the finance ministry has said. The taxpayers, however, can reclaim the ITC later following the deposit of taxes by the supplier. The ministry has inserted Rule 37A in Central Goods and Services Tax rules to give effect to the new provision.
India is currently home to 52 unicorn startups and one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems.
The domestic deal-making activities were hit by weak corporate governance and a huge liquidity crunch in 2019, while the global deals were also hard to come by due to various factors including uncertainties caused by the US-China trade war, which left many investors in a wait-and-watch mode.
Amazon's fresh investment in its India entities come at a time when the Seattle-based firm has faced losses in several of its business entities in India, such as seller services, wholesale, transportation services and digital payments, for the 2018-19 financial year.
No response has been received for the Expression of Interest floated for the strategic divestment of Air India
A large number of large and small businesses process EU data, have customers from the EU or have access to data of EU citizens in one way or another.
India Inc is not in the dark about moonlighting employees. According to a forensic accountant, companies can easily turn to experts and deploy digital tools that can be used to check if an employee is doing a second job or not - reaffirming fears of many who are wary of the practice in the context of the recent sacking of moonlighters by IT major Wipro. Arpinder Singh, global markets and India leader, forensic and integrity services, EY, said that EY had been involved with several companies to gauge moonlighting.
Probable reasons that led to failure of the sale process include 24 per cent government stake and corresponding rights, high debt, volatile crude oil prices, fluctuations in exchange rate, changes in macro environment, profitability track record of bidders and restriction on bidding by individuals.
Investments by private equity and venture capital funds in November stood at $6.8 billion across 102 deals, which is double by value when compared with the pandemic-impacted year-ago period but half of the bets in the preceding month of October, as per a report. In November 2020, such high-risk investors had infused $3.9 billion, while in October, the total investments had stood at $13.1 billion, the monthly data shared by industry lobby IVCA and the consultancy EY said. The overall investments in the first 11 months of the year have touched $72.6 billion, which is 53 per cent higher than the all-time high for a year achieved in 2020, it said.
Investments by private equity and venture capital funds (PE/VC) declined by 22 per cent in March to $4.6 billion spread across 107 deals, a report said on Wednesday. The deal activity showed an increase of 54 per cent by value at $15.5 billion across 360 deals, largely on the back of heightened activity in the startup space, the monthly report by IVCA and EY said. "While India's position as an attractive destination for PE/VC investments is expected to remain strong in 2022 given its high growth and macroeconomic and policy stability, the continuing geopolitical tensions, rising inflation, quantitative tightening by the US FED and inversion in the US yield curve are potential downside risks, making investors circumspect," Partner at EY Vivek Soni said.
The reopening of schools and colleges has sparked a crisis in the edtech sector with falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment. In a totally altered, post-pandemic landscape where students are back at school and colleges, companies are scrambling to revert to bricks-and-mortar tuition centres and adopting a hybrid model of offline and online education. Demand for online tuition has fallen, affecting the revenue of edtech companies in recent months. After two years of booming revenues, some experts say the sector is looking at a possible meltdown.
AzaadiSAT had around 75 small payloads developed by schoolgirls of 75 rural schools.
EY Foundation India and India Paryavaran Sahayak Foundation have come up with a cost-efficient and scalable solution. The project involves spreading awareness and driving usage of in-field straw management practices among farmers, to reduce the air pollution caused due to crop residue burning.
'In terms of ticket sales, Hindi is at 50-60 per cent while the South markets are at 80-90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.' The patchy performance of Hindi, the largest segment of the business is the nub of what is bothering Indian cinema.
With the introduction of the single window clearance provision, pre-production windows are expected to reduce significantly. Not only will it have an impact on the operational cost of the film, it will also allow studios to release films faster.
With the disruption caused by the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the 'fear of unknown' is looming over the government's privatisation drive. Although there is a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability on how things will unfold, the government is hopeful of completing the transactions listed in the Budget with a delay of one to two months, said a top government official. However, "there are many unknown factors now, and we do not know whether there could be a third wave. But we are trying to carry on with our work", the official said." Since there is a lot of uncertainty, the estimates will have to be revised as rating agencies are revising their outlook for growth.