At Prestige Polygon Towers in Chennai's Teynampet, hectic preparations are on for a mega global investors' meet under the aegis of Guidance Tamil Nadu (the state investment promotion agency) scheduled for January 2024. Asked about the key focus areas of the meet, the agency's managing director and chief executive officer, V Vishnu, said the state was betting big on electric mobility. This is no surprise, given that the state has signed electric vehicle (EV)-related memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with several companies in the recent past that may bring in investments worth around Rs 33,000 crore with the potential to create over 43,000 job opportunities.
Consumer goods firms and auto companies are witnessing an upturn in rural demand, which had been lagging for most of FY24. Expectations of a bumper rabi crop harvest have helped turn the tide. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee kept the repo rate unchanged last week, noting that as rural demand catches up, consumption is expected to support economic growth in 2024-25.
The spike in food prices at the onset of the monsoon season has corroborated the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) view that the fight against inflation is far from over, the State of the Economy report of the central bank said. At the same time, the report said that the country is poised to become the fastest-growing major economy in the world, notwithstanding some sequential moderation in economic activity in June. Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation rate increased to 4.8 per cent in June 2023, from 4.3 per cent in May, primarily on account of an increase in food inflation.
The government has decided to extend the Rs 25,938-crore production-linked incentive scheme for the automotive sector by one year, Union Heavy Industries Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said on Tuesday. Post extension, the five-year scheme, originally in place from 2022-23 to 2026-27, will be active until 2027-28. At present, incentives are applicable under the scheme for determined sales of Advanced Automotive Technology (AAT) products (vehicles and components) manufactured in India from 1 April 2022 onwards for a period of five consecutive years.
President Kovind, who arrived in Dhaka earlier in the day on his maiden State visit at the invitation of his counterpart M Abdul Hamid to attend the golden jubilee celebrations of Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971, held delegation-level talks with him which was followed by a banquet.
India's services sector growth eased to a three-month low in June but service providers continued to signal positive demand trends, which resulted in a stronger increase in new business volumes and further job creation, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index fell from 61.2 in May to 58.5 in June. Despite falling from May, the latest figure was consistent with a sharp pace of growth.
The push given to rooftop solar installation in the Interim Budget ties in with its high rate of adoption in Tier-II and -III cities of India. If original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automobile industry, government, and the solar sector are to be believed, in cities of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Kerala, 45-50 per cent of electric-vehicle (EV) users are employing rooftop power to charge their vehicles. This is compared to the national average of 25 per cent, say industry sources.
India Inc said the Foreign Trade Policy would give a significant push to manufactured goods and agriculture- and labour-intensive exports.
The RBI interest rate decision, industrial production data for June and the ongoing quarterly earnings from corporates would largely drive the stock markets this week, analysts said. Other major factors such as global market trends, the movement of oil prices and the trading activity of foreign investors would also influence trading, they added. "The market will have an eye on the RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, which will be announced on August 10, 2023. We are heading towards the last batch of Q2 earnings of key companies such as Adani Ports, Coal India, Hero MotoCorp, Hindalco and ONGC, among others, which will lead to stock-specific movement," said Pravesh Gour, senior technical analyst, Swastika Investmart Ltd.
Announcement of macroeconmic data such as industrial production and inflation, the US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision along with trends in global equities would dictate movement in the stock market this week, analysts said. Besides, foreign fund trading activity would also guide the trends in equities. "All eyes are now on the US Fed policy outcome for cues, which is scheduled on June 14. In the following sessions, the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BoJ) will also announce their policy decisions.
The limited availability of flexible (flex)-fuel vehicles in the Indian market and the slow rollout of ethanol-blended petrol by oil-marketing companies (OMCs) remain major obstacles to achieving widespread use of biofuels in the transportation sector in India. Recently, two Union ministers have emphasised India's biofuel potential, arguing that it has the capacity and potential to lead a transition towards widespread biofuel adoption. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari signalled that this transition is well underway and urged car manufacturers to quickly adapt and introduce new biofuel-run vehicles, lest the government resort to taxing diesel vehicles.
The party also promised reservation to minorities on basis of their population after the caste census.
Although the BJP has never been ballistic about the BJD and Narendra Modi has avoided being critical of Naveen Patnaik, the BJP is optimistic that the party can improve its electoral fortunes in Odisha on its own, notes Rup Narayan Das.
If the war in the Israel-Gaza region escalates into a larger West Asian conflict, it could pose problems.
The company's multi-modal, $200-million Pune manufacturing plant is expected to go on stream by mid-2014.
Ayurvedic product maker Vicco Laboratories is planning to set up a manufacturing facility in Dubai.\n
The major driver of Mod's foreign policy can be gauged from his economic priorities such as creating employment opportunities for the youth bulge. Related to this is emphasis on manufacturing, and infrastructure development, which in turn raises the issue of FDI. He has already articulated his views on all these issues, says Rup Narayan Das.
The pace of economic growth in emerging markets continued to revive from the stagnation seen earlier in the year.
In a major sign of transformation of manufacturing-dominated Chinese economy, annual output of its service sector may exceed that of the manufacturing sector for the first time ever in 2013, an expert said.
Economic recovery in US, euro zone help; new orders sub-index at 52.4
'Policy-sensitive sectors will wait and watch, but policy-agnostic areas will continue based on normal consumption demand.'
The wholesale price-based inflation eased to a 29-month low of 1.34 per cent in March on easing prices of manufactured products and fuel items, even though food articles turned expensive.
Wholesale price inflation remained in the negative territory for the fourth month in a row in July at (-)1.36 per cent, even though prices of food items, especially vegetables, skyrocketed. The inflation, however, has inched up from (-)4.12 per cent recorded in June fuelled by 62.12 per cent rise in vegetable prices. In July last year, wholesale price index (WPI) was 14.07 per cent.
According to bankers and economists, there is room for further rate cut by the RBI as retail and wholesale inflation rates have remained benign.
From January-March this year, 64,000 jobs were created in eight crucial sectors of the economy.
Tata Steel was the biggest gainer in the Sensex chart, rising 2.39 per cent, followed by Tata Motors, Power Grid, Reliance Industries, UltraTech Cement, NTPC, Nestle, HUL, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Asian Paints. In contrast, Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank, Infosys and Titan were among the laggards.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday hinted at not raising tax rates and providing incentives for manufacturing.
The country saw a massive year-on-year surge in the demand for electric vehicles, with retail sales of electric two-wheelers rising by 58 per cent, passenger vehicles by 130 per cent, three-wheelers by 82 per cent, and commercial vehicles by 171 per cent in March 2023, according to the data shared by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada). According to a report by JMK Research, the EV segment as a whole grew by 157 per cent during FY23, to 1,180,597 units, from 458,746 units a year ago. Overall, EV sales in March 2023 rose by 82 per cent from the March 2022 figure, the JMK report added.
The exclusive club that dominates the global semiconductor fab scenario is about to get a new member. Taiwan, South Korea, and China control nearly 70 per cent of the global capacity. SEMI, the global industry body for semiconductor and electronics design and manufacturing, projects all fabs collectively will churn out 30 million wafers a month this year.
The industry said if the policy was announced, it would have taken 28 million vehicles bought before March 2005 off the road.
The wholesale price-based inflation eased for the eighth consecutive month to 4.73 per cent in January on easing prices of manufactured items, fuel and power. The wholesale price-index (WPI) based inflation rate was 4.95 per cent in December 2022 and 13.68 per cent in January 2022. Inflation in food articles, however, rose to 2.38 per cent in January, from (-) 1.25 per cent in December, 2022.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the iPhone manufacturer is looking to invest more in the world's second-largest smartphone market. Cook, on his first trip to India in seven years, opened Apple's first retail store in the country in Mumbai on Tuesday and will launch another in Delhi on Thursday. Looking to replicate what China did to Apple's business in the last 15 years, the tech giant is eyeing India's massive market with an expanding middle class to power sales growth, and potentially make it a home base for the production of millions of Apple devices.
A day after the RBI raised the benchmark lending rate by 35 basis points, Kotak Mahindra Bank Managing Director Uday Kotak on Thursday said the central bank may go for one more rate hike to bring inflation below its upper tolerance level of 6 per cent. Yesterday, the RBI indicated that it wants inflation to be within the band first and then move towards the target of 4 per cent, Kotak said at the CII Global Economic Policy Summit 2022. "My sense is that there could be one more rate hike and that may be the time for thinking about a pivot, but we got to watch very closely the data, and maybe around 6.5 per cent as it looks today, subject to what happens to the world, subject to what happens to oil, subject to what happens to many other things," he said.
Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn sees potential of investing several billions of dollars in India if it gets to completely implement its plan, a top official of the company said. Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) chairman and CEO Young Liu during the company's second quarter earnings call on Friday said that the company's Indian arm has achieved the turnover of close to $10 billion on an annual basis and there is a lot of investment potential in India. "Foxconn annual revenue was $200 billion.
The wholesale price-based inflation declined to a 21-month low of 5.85 per cent in November on easing prices of food, fuel and manufactured items. After remaining in double digits for 19 months, the wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation declined to 8.39 per cent in October. The inflation was 14.87 per cent in November 2021. "Decline in the rate of inflation in November 2022, is primarily contributed by fall in prices of food articles, basic metals, textiles, chemicals & chemical products and paper & paper products as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year," the commerce and industry ministry said on Wednesday.
Manufacturers said they expect the growth of manufacturing sector to be less than 7 per cent.
Announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said the RBI's internal survey says manufacturing, services and infrastructure sector firms are optimistic of the business outlook.
Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday pitched for policy guidelines to utilise scrapped vehicles as raw material for steel production, saying there are close to about one crore such vehicles in the country. Scindia, who also holds steel portfolio, said the time is not far away when the country will have to move towards green steel, and therefore, the option of iron ore and coking coal will not be available. Green steel is manufactured without using fossil fuels.
The US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision, global market trends and trading activity of foreign investors are the major factors that would dictate terms in the equity markets in a holiday-shortened week ahead, analysts said. Equity markets will remain closed on Tuesday on account of Ganesh Chaturthi. From the global front, interest rate decisions from the Bank of England and Bank of Japan would also influence market trends.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
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