With the prediction of an above normal monsoon in 2024, the government is expecting food prices to come down, the finance ministry's monthly economic report for March has said. The report, released on Thursday, said robust foreign inflows and comfortable trade deficits were expected to keep the rupee within a comfortable range. "Further easing of food prices is on the anvil as IMD (India Meteorological Department) has predicted above-normal rainfall during the monsoon season, which is likely to lead to higher production, assuming good spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall," the monthly report, released by the Department of Economic Affairs, said.
India's fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) has launched a formal investigation against India's biggest paints firm, Asian Paints, for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the organised decorative paints market, following a complaint by Aditya Birla group's Grasim Industries' Birla Opus Paints division.
India Inc on Thursday pitched for lowering income tax burden on common man, increase in capital expenditure, and firm steps to contain food inflation in their nearly two-hour long interaction with finance minister Nirmala Shitharaman ahead of the Union Budget. During pre-Budget consultation with Sitharaman, the industry leaders and associations also urged the government to focus more on infrastructure development with a view to maintaining the economic growth momentum. The industry leaders also laid stress on boosting the MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) sector, considered a backbone of the Indian economy and main employment generator.
The launch of a range of electric motorbikes (e-bikes) by Bengaluru-based Ola Electric, a first for the company, has disconcerted the industry because the low price the firm claims to be offering has the potential to disrupt the market. On August 15, Ola unveiled its Roadster series e-bike with a starting-price at Rs 74,999. This new pricing undercuts the previous lowest price in the category, which was Rs 110,000.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the government will consider the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Chemicals and Petrochemicals sector to make India a manufacturing hub for such products. In view of stringent pollution control regulations and rising labour cost, she said, global manufacturers in the chemical industry are looking at diversifying their products and production capability and India stands out as an alternative destination for manufacturing. Besides, India offers a large domestic market, she said while addressing the third edition of the summit on 'Global Chemicals and Petrochemicals Manufacturing Hubs in India'.
With an impending stir threat by its pilots, Air India is likely to pay the September salaries of its employees in two days and incentives and allowances by November 10.
The Budget proposals are expected to boost the fortunes of consumer goods and fast-moving consumer goods companies, which have been struggling with poor consumer demand for more than a year. The Budget announcements, such as the increase in standard deduction by Rs 25,000 for income-tax payers and slab revisions, will put more money in their hands, boosting consumer demand. Private consumption is also likely to benefit from a new scheme to offer internships to 10 million youths in the country's top 500 companies.
Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav requested all executives in the level of general managers and above to voluntarily forego salaries and incentives for July as a gesture to ease the liquidity crunch faced by the airline, an Air India spokesperson told PTI. The airline is facing a possible industrial unrest with employees threatening agitation in case their June salary is not given by this month-end.
The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the non-executive pilots' body of erstwhile Indian Airlines, on Wednesday said that it will not accept any pay cut proposed by the management.
India's leading steel companies hope the Modi 3.0 Budget will continue the massive capital expenditure currently underway, focusing on infrastructure development, manufacturing, and fair trade. The infrastructure segment is the largest steel user, and the government's focus has fuelled steel consumption even as international markets have underperformed. According to provisional statistics, steel consumption grew 13.6 per cent in FY24, reaching 136 million tonnes (mt), according to a CRISIL report.
Global rating agency Moody's on Monday raised India's growth forecast for 2024 calendar year to 6.8 per cent, from 6.1 per cent estimated earlier, on the back of 'stronger-than-expected' economic data of 2023 and fading global economic headwinds. India's real GDP expanded 8.4 per cent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2023, resulting in a 7.7 per cent growth for full-year 2023. Capital spending by the government and strong manufacturing activity have meaningfully contributed to the robust growth outcomes in 2023, Moody's Investors Service said.
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.
India has already become the world's fifth largest economy in the 75th year of Independence and will reach the $3.5 trillion mark by end-March, said the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. In real terms, the economy is expected to grow at 7 per cent for the year ending March 2023. This follows an 8.7 per cent growth in the previous financial year.
Vistara has expanded its network of agents.
The government on Thursday imposed import restrictions on laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, ultra small form factor computers, and servers with immediate effect. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a notification said exemption from import licensing is provided up to 20 items per consignment for R&D, testing, benchmarking and evaluation, repair and return and product development purposes.
Despite all the noise around India's chance to leverage the China-plus one strategy, India's share of global foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows fell from 3.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2022 to 2.19 per cent in the same period in 2023, according to OECD data. The sharp drop of 54 per cent is much steeper than the overall global FDI inflow decline of 26 per cent in the first nine months. FDI inflows to China have fallen dramatically from a share of 12.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2022 to only 1.7 per cent in the same period in 2023.
'The Budget needs to focus more on social welfare schemes.'
India's import of personal computers, including laptops and tablets, shot up in September by 42 per cent to $715 million, reversing a year-long downward trend after the government announced it would impose import restrictions on such electronic hardware items in August. The rise in such imports were led by the largest source China (33 per cent) and Singapore (188 per cent), according to data released by the commerce department. On August 3, the Centre had announced it was planning to bring seven products in the information technology hardware segment, such as personal computers, micro computers, mainframe computers, super computers, computer systems and data processing units under the 'restricted' label.
'In the new coalition government, India's reform agenda may prioritise job creation and factor market reforms.'
India's exports are becoming less vulnerable to changes in world demand and exchange rates, according to a publication titled 'Re-examining Narratives: A Collection of Essays', penned by chief economic advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran and his team. The publication pointed out that this conclusion has been drawn from the fact that there has been a decrease in the income elasticity of exports to 3.44 during 2009-2022, from 5.67 during 1991-2008, and in the inverse price elasticity of exports to 0.4 from 2.7. While a decline in elasticities is favourable in the presence of downside risks such as a decline in global demand and an appreciation of exchange rates, it may not be beneficial during boom periods.
In the run-up to Apple CEO Tim Cook's visit to India, government officials are finalising the talk points with the Cupertino-headquartered tech major. Officials said that the government would like Apple to "deepen" the company's engagement in the manufacturing and assembly of iPhones in the country and not limit itself only to the minimum commitments made under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for mobile devices. The conversations between the two sides are likely to focus on that.
It will also make up-to-date payment of productivity linked incentives for all licensed category employees between May and June.
The central government employees may get increment in their salaries on the basis of their performance as the Sixth Pay Commission is looking into the possibility of adding productivity-linked incentives to their overall income.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led central government will use the unorganised workers database - e-Shram portal - to provide the benefits of various government programmes to the nearly 300 million workers over the next five years, if it is voted to power for the third consecutive term in the upcoming general elections. "We have registered unorganised workers on the e-Shram platform. "We will reach out to the e-Shram registered 'shramik bandhu' and help them avail the benefits of various government programmes that they are eligible for," the manifesto of the party read.
RIL subsidiary Reliance New Energy Solar, Ola Electric, Hyundai Global Motors Company and Rajesh Exports have been approved for receiving incentives under the Rs 18,100 crore Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for battery manufacturing in India, sources said on Thursday. "The ministry had received bids from 10 companies with a capacity of 130 GWh. Reliance, Ola Electric, Hyundai and Rajesh Exports have qualified for ACC batteries," a source said. Other companies which had applied for the PLI scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) batteries were Lucas-TVS, Mahindra & Mahindra, Amara Raja Batteries, Exide Industries, Larsen & Toubro and India Power Corporation Limited.
Air India will introduce new flights and also increase frequency of flights on various sectors from March 28, when summer schedule comes into effect.
The employees, holding Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav responsible for the present condition of the airline, also demanded his removal and regularisation of the payment of their due salary and productivity linked incentive.
The government had earlier warned that the management was free to take any action against them.
Even as the Air India Board meets on Wednesday to discuss productivity-linked incentives (PLI) and other issues, the Joint Action Committee of various trade unions has warned against imposing any decision on the employees unilaterally.
National Aviation Company Ltd, which runs Air India, has constituted committees to review productivity-linked incentives and cost cutting measures. These will talk with the labour unions and report on Monday.
The government will conduct a spectrum auction this year, which will facilitate the roll-out of 5G services by private telecom operators during the financial year 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. "Spectrum auctions will be conducted in 2022 to facilitate the roll-out of 5G mobile services within 2022-23 by private telecom providers," Sitharaman said. She said the telecommunications sector in general and 5G, in particular, can enable growth and offer job opportunities.
Zetwerk is not exactly a household name, but this unicorn, boasting revenues of Rs 11,450 crore as of last year, is among the top four electronics manufacturers in India. The startup is capitalising on a notable trend in smart TV sales - fall in collective shipments from top brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, LG and an uptick in the market share of smaller, regional, and online brands. Emerging as a key Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) player, Zetwerk operates a plant in Haryana that caters to 10 per cent of the country's overall smart TV production capacity.
The country's exports are expected to contract by 5.8 per cent and imports by 11.3 per cent during the second half of the current financial year, though implementation of several measures by the government would help support exports going forward, according to the Economic Survey 2021. With gradual recovery of economic activities, the survey said that imports and exports have picked up. During the first half of 2020-21 (April-September), exports dipped by 21.31 per cent to $125.25 billion while imports declined by 40 per cent to $148.69 billion.
The government may tweak customs duties in the Budget next week on several goods, including furniture raw materials, copper scrap, certain chemicals, telecom equipment and rubber products, to promote domestic manufacturing and exports, sources said. They said that while import duties could be tweaked on over 20 products such as cut and polished diamonds, rubber goods, leather garments, telecom equipment and carpet, the customs duties could be removed on select raw materials (like wood in rough, swan wood and hard board) used for furniture manufacturing and copper concentrate.
Why is Shailesh Chandra, managing director of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility, not worried about the competition?
An Air India spokesperson said that efforts are also on to pay productivity linked incentive arrears for October to employees soon.
'The incentives to switch to the new tax regime... are viewed as a negative due to potential loss of customers who buy policies for saving tax.' 'The tax-saving value proposition for the sector reduces.'
The panel, which is a sub-committee of the Air India board, was set up on Tuesday following which the executive pilots withdrew their five-day long agitation against slashing of their productivity-linked incentive and flying allowance by half.
"I hope the entire airline (Air India) will come back to full operation from tomorrow (Wednesday), otherwise the Air India management will be free to take any decision that it feels is necessary," Patel said in a veiled threat.
