Apprehending a slowdown in the growth of the economy due to the hardening of interest rates, the appreciating rupee and falling tariffs, the government has decided to set up a group to discuss the impact of these changes.
Indian exports, which was hit by global slowdown last year, are likely to remain sluggish during 2013 as well due to challenging economic conditions in western economies, though policymakers have drawn a strategy to diversify exports.
NCAER said the monetary policy measures are unlikely to revive growth at this juncture and suggested providing fiscal stimulus, which too can be challenging unless it can be financed through better revenue generation.
Growth in power demand remains in negative though it is picking up as coronavirus-related restrictions are eased.
The market likely to cross $10-bn mark in 2014.
Amid current geopolitical challenges and a slowdown in global growth, veteran emerging market investor Mark Mobius called India a safe haven for investors, backed by a stable government. The renowned investor, who is excited about the opportunities available in India, said the country is now the second largest in the portfolio of Mobius Capital Partners after Taiwan. Calling India a "land of opportunities and innovation", he said that his optimism about India is driven by the stable government and young demographic, with an average age of 27 years.
'A soft landing of the Indian economy would be a long-term positive for the equity markets.'
There are indications or signs of the economy picking up -- collection of GST and consumption of electricity, said former RBI governor, C Rangarajan.
Although large companies like Nestle, Dabur or HUL have been impacted by this slowdown in demand, it was the small, local players that have been hit harder.
The rising spends on credit cards, increase in sale of third-party products and surge in consumer loan demand have allowed banks to limit the impact of slowdown in corporate fee income.
In recent months, several pharma multinational corporations (MNCs) are increasingly turning to Indian companies to expand market reach in the country's pharmaceuticals sector. Sanofi's partnerships with Dr Reddy's, Cipla, and Emcure, AstraZeneca and Mankind Pharma - teaming up for asthma medication distribution - are a few instances of this trend. This strategy allows MNCs to leverage established Indian networks and reach a wider audience. Indian companies also benefit from global brands and expertise, say analysts.
The government has limited room to reduce expenditure without further weakening growth, it noted.
Slowdown in growth is the most worrisome factor and volatile capital flows have made the country vulnerable to "stops and reversals", RBI Governor D Subbarao said.
Welspun now wants to shift focus back on the core business of steel and pipes rather than the big-ticket infrastructure sector.
'To sustain our growth trajectory, we must continue to explore and capitalise on growth opportunities.'
Backed by technology banks are expanding the branch network - and adding more to the workforce.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT services firm, is planning to increase salaries by an average of 7-8 per cent for its offsite employees and 2-4 per cent for its onsite staffers in 2024-25. High performers can expect a raise of 12-15 per cent. The company, which had a headcount of 603,305 as of December 31, 2023, will be closely looking at the promotions and the process may also get pushed to the first quarter of FY25, revealed a source on condition of anonymity, because he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Certain changes in the past two or three years could have a long-term structural impact on the IT services market.
The finance minister's assertion that industry should not expect any spectacular announcements in the 2024 interim Budget suggest that the electoral imperatives of more tax concessions or higher expenditure on welfarist programmes could be far less pronounced than they were before the 2019 interim Budget, expects A K Bhattacharya.
The Satyam Computer Services scandal, which broke out on January 7 when the company's promoter, B Ramalinga Raju, announced that there was a Rs 7,800-crore (Rs 78-billion) hole in its deposits, is certain to have made it worse. According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, as much as 49 per cent of the respondents (all drawn from the top ten per cent income bracket) expressed growing concerns about business in India.
India's appetite for imported crude oil may wane in fiscal year (FY) 2023 from record levels in pre-pandemic 2019-20 fiscal as higher oil prices, a spillover from the conflict in Ukraine, and increasing use of biofuels affect domestic demand for petroleum products. Brent crude surged to a nine-year high, shy of a July 2008 record $147.50 a barrel, before declining to around $100 a barrel - but the volatility in commodity rates will slow global economic growth and use of fuels. Demand for all oil products may grow at only 2-3 per cent in FY23, slower than the current fiscal and nearly half the 5.5 per cent growth estimated by the petroleum ministry, according to industry officials.
'Given the worries about sluggish growth, rising interest rates and likely volatility, it's quite logical to infer that the SIP route could be the preferred way of investing.'
Economists and industry chambers are divided whether the Indian economy is headed towards the same slow growth as was the case during the time of global financial crisis.
The country's exports edged up 1 per cent to $38.45 billion in December 2023 while the trade deficit narrowed to a three-month low of $19.8 billion, official data released on Monday showed. Imports declined by 4.85 per cent to $58.25 billion in December last year due to a dip in crude oil shipments. The previous low in trade deficit - the difference between imports and exports - was recorded in September at $19.37 billion.
India's GDP growth for the current fiscal is expected to slow down to 4.8 per cent, a UN report has said, warning that the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to result in significant adverse economic impacts globally. The UN 'Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) 2020: Towards sustainable economies' said that Covid-19 is having far-reaching economic and social consequences for the region, with strong cross-border spillover effects through trade, tourism and financial linkages.
UltraTech Cement's third quarter of financial year 2023-24 (Q3FY24) performance saw a combination of 6 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) volume growth and 8 per cent revenue growth coupled with better realisations per tonne. The earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) stood at Rs 3,250 crore and Ebitda per tonne was Rs 1,191. Profit after tax (PAT) was reported at Rs 1,780 crore. Other income dipped and interest costs rose.
NRIs still send largest remittances than counterparts elsewhere.
India can become a $6.7 trillion economy by 2031, from $3.4 trillion currently, if the country clocks an average growth of 6.7 per cent for 7 years, an S&P Global report said on Thursday. India had clocked a 7.2 per cent GDP growth in 2022-23 fiscal. But a global slowdown and lagged effect of a policy rate hike by RBI could slow down growth to 6 per cent in the current fiscal, S&P Global said in a report titled 'Look Forward: India's Money'.
Higher for longer' may be the narrative in the developed markets, but interest rates might not stay high for very long in India, with a section of the market expecting rate cuts to begin this year. The six-member Monetary Policy Committee of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to keep interest rates unchanged at 6.5 per cent in the April review - after hiking the policy repo rate in six previous meetings. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das emphasised that the pause was only for the April policy and that the central bank was ready to act if the situation demanded.
'Our factories are world-class and are becoming increasingly attractive for our global business leaders to use to serve other markets.'
Moody's Investors Service on Friday projected India's growth at zero per cent for the current fiscal and said the negative outlook on sovereign rating reflects increasing risks that GDP growth will remain significantly lower than in the past. The outlook also partly shows weaker policy effectiveness to address economic and institutional issues, it noted in the update to its November 2019 rating forecast.
Within days of announcing mega investments for building in Hyderabad its second data centre cluster in India, Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday said it is excited about the India market, where cloud adoption offers massive headroom for growth. Pledging its long-term commitment to the India market, AWS, Amazon's cloud computing unit, said it expects global uncertainties to accelerate the decisions by companies to opt for flexible, on-demand cloud infrastructure to pare costs, gain efficiencies and drive business innovation. "Cloud reacts well to uncertainty," Puneet Chandok, president - commercial business, AWS India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) told PTI.
The slowdown in the US economy along with domestic factors like service tax on leased and rented premises and imposition of minimum alternate tax may impact revenues and earning growth rates of all major IT companies of India.
As the global economic slowdown takes hold, India's gold demand has recorded an all-time high quarterly growth of 66 per cent in the third quarter of the current calendar year as investors continued to find the yellow metal a safe haven.
When emerging from this crisis, the govt must consider a fresh approach to reviving growth, revisiting the Centre-state fiscal balance, and devising a re-imagined GST 2.0, suggests T N Ninan.
India's policy focus in recent months has been, on containment of fiscal deficit, along with measures that would boost investment levels in the economy.
Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, and Bajaj Finance were among the other major laggards. Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, UltraTech Cement, Infosys, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra were among the gainers.
There was a slowdown in the manufacturing sector, which grew at 1.2 per cent in June 2019 as compared to 6.9 per cent a year ago.
