Marking its quickest rise in over seven years, India's services sector activity expanded for the fifth successive month in February, tracking spike in business orders, renewed export demand and strengthening business confidence, a monthly survey showed on Wednesday. The IHS Markit India Services Business Activity Index rose from 55.5 in January to 57.5 in February. This is the fastest expansion in services output since January 2013.
The Chinese currency too is expected to continue its fall.
'We expect the bull run to continue until economic growth continues.'
The nominees are Congresswoman Deb Haaland as Secretary of Interior, Jennifer Granholm as Energy Secretary, Michael Regan as administrator for Environmental Protection Agency and Brenda Mallory as Chair of the Council of the Council on Environmental Quality.
Softening inflation, Das said would make available more policy space to the central bank to address risks to the growth going forward.
China, the Ukraine crisis and Quad will dominate the discussions, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Xi spoke of the importance of implementing the new development philosophy and advancing the new development paradigm of "dual circulation" in the country's new development phase to ensure a good start for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.
'Aquaponics can effectively cushion the impact of a calamity like COVID.'
Fund managers said investors remained positive on the pharma manufacturing activity in India, which further strengthened during the Covid-19 period, on account of restrictions imposed on pharma imports from China.
"CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) territorial aggression is also apparent on its Indian border where China has attempted to seize control of the Line of Actual Control by force," US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien said in a remark on China early this week in Utah.
Biden on Friday opened the first Quad Leaders' Summit held virtually and attended by Prime Minister Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
'We are very watchful about inflation and growth. But the main challenge is economic revival and growth.'
Buoyed by an increase in public investment and incentives to boost manufacturing, India's economy is expected to grow by 8.3 per cent in the fiscal year 2021-22, less than the previous projection early this year before the country was hit by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank has said in its latest report. World Bank chief economist for the South Asia Region Hans Timmer told PTI here that when one looks at the high frequency data, they see that as a result of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery paused, and some indicate that the recovery actually declined briefly. "We project for this fiscal year 8.3 per cent (growth rate for Indian economy) that is less than we projected early in the year before the health crisis caused by the second wave. "Given the sharp contraction of the economy last year, it might not look like a lot, but in my view, that is actually very positive news, given the violent second wave and the severity of the health crisis," he said on Thursday.
Leading automakers Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors on Thursday reported robust sales in March as a shift towards personal mobility and pent up demand continued to help companies push dispatches to their respective retail partners. Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Honda Cars and Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) also reported strong sales last month as compared to the year-ago period, when dispatches were adversely impacted due to the impending transition to BSVI from April 2020 and the nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic. The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India said its domestic sales stood at 1,49,518 units last month. The auto major had reported sales of 76,976 units in March 2020.
How Shibani Bhagat plans to rewrite the rules of the Indian sneaker business.
The markets are in bubble territory.
Wall Street brokerage Goldman Sachs has lowered its estimate for India's economic growth to 11.1 per cent in fiscal year to March 31, 2022, as a number of cities and states announced lockdowns of varying intensities to check spread of coronavirus infections. India is suffering the world's worst outbreak of COVID-19 cases, with deaths crossing 2.22 lakh and new cases above 3.5 lakh daily. This has led to demand for imposition of nationwide strict lockdowns to stem the spread of the virus - a move that the Modi government has so far avoided after the economic devastation last year from a similar strategy.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
'People always short-change the resilience of the economy.'
The strong client metrics, industry leading growth in digital services, a very strong order book and deal pipeline are validations that customers recognise TCS' differentiated capabilities, chief executive officer and managing director Rajesh Gopinathan said.
Experts hail Obama's India trip as a big step towards signing of imp trade agreements.
With nearly 100 countries closing national borders during the past month, the movement of people and tourism flows have come to a screeching halt. The contraction could be even higher if governments fail to provide income support and help boost consumer spending.
Fitch reaffirmed India's rating at 'BBB-' with a Stable Outlook saying the rating balances a still strong medium-term growth outlook compared with similar category peers and relative external resilience stemming from solid foreign-reserve buffers against high public debt, a weak financial sector and some lagging structural factors, including governance indicators and GDP per capita.
'While the march of globalisation is perhaps inevitable, what is certain is that the world is no longer flat as, the emerging pattern of trade is more regional. 'This new trend of 'slowbalisation' raises some questions that challenge conventional wisdom on how businesses should distribute their capacities,' Birla said.
With the Finance Minister deciding against holding pre-Budget meetings this year, this series tries to look at what leading businessmen, economists and politicians wanted to tell the minister
Market participants are hoping for a few tweaks on the taxation front which will encourage consumers and businesses to spend.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd, India's largest personal care product maker, on Tuesday reported a better-than-expected increase in its September quarter net profit and revenues, signalling a revival of demand following the world's biggest lockdown.
With India's GDP clocking a lower contraction of 7.5 per cent in the September quarter, industry and experts expressed confidence of further recovery in the coming months and said the government's actions are bearing fruit. In a tweet, Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal said, "Q2 #GDP numbers show that economy is recovering. Government's efforts on stimulus and reform are showing results. Hopefully, we will have positive growth in H2 FY21 and double digit growth in FY22."
'India is possibly the most fiscally constrained market in the region.'
'I urge the government to put aside vendetta politics, and reach out to all sane voices and thinking minds, to steer our economy out of this man-made crisis'
Addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting in Parliament House, she also attacked the governor of the state, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, saying he had acted in an "unprecedented and reprehensible manner".
Plenty of other factors are likely to keep a lid on prices.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee firmed up further against the pound sterling
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a report on Monday that a lower but positive economic growth in India in the post-Covid-19 pandemic period and India's large market will continue to attract market-seeking investments to the country. The World Investment Report 2020 by UNCTAD said that India was the 9th largest recipient of FDI in 2019, with 51 billion dollars of inflows during the year, an increase from the 42 billion dollars of FDI received in 2018, when India ranked 12 among the top 20 host economies in the world.
A journey that can teach us all a thing or two about resilience.
Moody's said India's current account deficit (CAD) has narrowed significantly from 4.8 per cent in 2012 to 1.4 per cent in 2014.
OPEC agrees to keep pumping as oil glut fears persist.
Besides firming up India-EU counter-terror partnership, the Summit in Brussels is expected to evince interest in other projects like cleaning of Ganga on the lines of River Rhine and Danube.
The drop in oil to around $50 a barrel this year has triggered steep cutbacks in production of US shale oil
The rating agency also expects merchandise exports to grow by 8-10 per cent in the next fiscal year.
