Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal on Saturday pressed for further liberalisation of the defence sector and called for corporatisation of defence factories to make the country self reliant in respect of arms and ammunition. There are 52 defence factories for manufacturing arms and ammunition in the country but most of them are running at 10 per cent capacity, he said. "We (India) can be the largest producer of arms and ammunition. "If the defence factories are corporatised it will bring in a new way of thinking," Agarwal said while addressing the inauguration of a post graduate programme for executives virtually from London.
From the Sensex pack, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Infosys, UltraTech Cement, NTPC, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Consultancy Services, ICICI Bank and Maruti were among the major winners. Titan, Nestle, Larsen & Toubro, Axis Bank, ITC and Asian Paints were among the major laggards.
Sounding a note of caution, former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that India is "dangerously close" to the Hindu rate of growth in view of subdued private sector investment, high interest rates and slowing global growth. Rajan said that sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying. Hindu rate of growth is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged around 4 per cent.
The festive season will mean business for the steel industry as it is the time when automotive and consumer appliance companies bump up demand to prepare for higher sales, experts have said. Ranjan Dhar, chief marketing officer at ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India), said that bookings by auto and consumer appliance industries are 20 per cent higher ahead of the festive season compared to last year. "While this could be for a couple of months, it could normalise later at approximately 10 per cent," he said.
Growth in India is expected to slow to 6.3 per cent in FY 2023/24 (April-March), a 0.3 percentage point downward revision from January, the World Bank said Tuesday but noted there is an unexpected resilience in private consumption and investment and robust growth in the services. The World Bank made these points in its latest edition of Global Economic Prospects according to which global growth is projected to decelerate from 3.1 per cent in 2022 to 2.1 per cent in 2023. In Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs) other than China, growth is set to slow to 2.9 per cent this year from 4.1 per cent last year. These forecasts reflect broad-based downgrades.
The IHS Markit India Services Business Activity Index improved from 52.7 in November to 53.3 in December, highlighting the second-strongest rate of increase in output in over a year, after July. However, the overall level of positive sentiment remained below its long-run average.
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In New York market, the dollar lost ground against most major rivals on last Friday amid mixed US data on industrial production and consumer sentiment.
New Delhi's timing couldn't have been worse, both for India's fledgling electric vehicle (EV) sector and prospective electric bike buyers. It was hard to miss the perfect storm brewing for India's EV industry since early 2022. On one hand, you had several accidents involving battery fires that unnerved consumers; on the other, uncertainty had crept in over subsidies.
Manufacturing sector production registered a decline of 17.1 per cent, while the output of mining and power fell 19.8 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
India is well positioned to continue to be the fastest-growing major economy next year, which may mark the lowest global growth since the millennium began barring the pandemic and the global financial crisis, according to Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran. In his New Year message to around 9.35 lakh employees of the Tata Group, he said increasing consumption, consumer confidence and investment will support India's growth story although the global environment has several risk factors, including the energy crisis in Europe, the battle to contain inflation to avoid recession, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts. "Post-pandemic, India opened up, and we have returned to living our daily lives normally, in a year that saw the nation turn 75 years old.
In terms of industries, 10 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector showed positive growth during November 2018.
India's GDP may turn positive at 1.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2020-21, having witnessed contraction in the previous two quarters due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the number of cases is falling and public spending has started rising, according to a report. The government will release the GDP numbers for the October-December quarter of the current fiscal on Friday. Projecting that the gross domestic product (GDP) may have returned to the black in the last quarter of the calendar year 2020, DBS Bank in the report said the full-year growth in real terms may be at a negative 6.8 per cent.
India recorded economic growth of 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2023-24 against 13.1 per cent in the year-ago period, as per the National Statistical Office (NSO) data released on Thursday. India remains the fastest-growing major economy as China's GDP growth in the April-June quarter was 6.3 per cent.
Retail inflation remained above the RBI's comfort level for the second consecutive month despite slipping slightly to 6.26 per cent in June while the factory output recorded a growth of 29.3 per cent in May, mainly on account of the base effect, the government data showed. The marginal slippage in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation was noticed despite little firmness witnessed in the food inflation which inched up to 5.15 per cent in June from 5.01 per cent a month ago. Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 6.3 per cent in May 2021 and 6.23 per cent in June 2020.
Indian plants -- who plan to begin production with 28 nano metre chips -- will take two to four years to get off the ground. By that time, in the fast changing world of chip making, the global market would have shifted to 22 nm.
In terms of industries, 17 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth.
The government has no plans to import wheat as it has sufficient stocks to meet the country's requirements, official sources said. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has enough stock for public distribution, they added. "There are no plans to import wheat into India. "The country has sufficient stocks to meet our domestic requirements," a source said.
India's economic growth had slumped to decade low of 5 per cent in 2012-13.
Extending gains for the third day, gold prices rose by Rs 300 to Rs 30,700 per ten gram in the national capital today on sustained buying by stockists for the ongoing marriage season amid a firming global trend.
'We are against Alibaba investing in Paytm.' 'We are against the concessions given to Paytm.' 'In fact, we want Paytm to close down because of its alliance with Alibaba.'
The zones, says Panagariya, would have to be set up near deep-draft ports, capable of accommodating very large and heavily loaded ships
The Index of Industrial Production recorded an impressive growth of 11 per cent in February despite power sector registering dismal performance indicating unpleasant summers in the days ahead.
Manufacturing sector, which accounts for two-thirds of the industrial production, recorded a growth of 7.3 per cent in June indicating return of consumer demand in the market.
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.
A combination of one of the lowest labour costs and a large surplus workforce, which will continue to grow until 2031, is one of the key competitive edges that India is leveraging to challenge its rivals in Southeast Asia in the race for a China-Plus-One strategy. Apart from India, the countries in the race to woo global companies that manufacture in China, as well as the supply chains to their country include Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. On the labour front, India is a clear winner.
Buoyed by strong demand from the corporate and small-and-medium business (SMB) sectors in India, Dell Inc, the world's No. 2 computer maker, said on Tuesday that it would be doubling the production capacity of its lone plant in India from 4 lakh to about 1 million units per annum. In a move to achieve this, the company announced the manufacture of a wide range of laptop lines at the Sriperumbudur plant near Chennai.
Benchmark indices settled lower on Friday, with the Sensex declining 111 points on the back of a sharp fall in index heavyweight Reliance Industries. The BSE benchmark went lower by 111.01 points or 0.21 per cent to settle at 52,907.93. During the day, it tanked 924.69 points or 1.74 per cent to 52,094.25. The NSE Nifty dipped 28.20 points or 0.18 per cent to close at 15,752.05.
NSO has pegged economic growth at 5 per cent in 2019-20 in its second advance estimates.
'India is an equity market with a breadth and depth of companies to invest in.'
Further stimulus measures are expected in the upcoming Budget where the focus is likely to be on reforms, including some structural measures such as reducing red tape and boosting foreign direct investment. The meeting with industrialists is in the series of discussions that Modi has had during the last couple of weeks to seek suggestions to revive growth.
Chief economist at State Bank of India has revised downward the full-year growth forecast to a low 6.8 per cent from 7.5 per cent earlier for FY2023, citing "the way below GDP numbers for the first quarter". The National Statistical Office on Wednesday released the Q1 growth numbers which showed a consensus growth of 13.5 per cent, pulled down by the poor show of the manufacturing sector, which reported a paltry 4.8 per cent expansion in the first three months of FY23, negating the robust show by the services sector. Consensus forecast was 15-16.7 per cent of which the RBI made the highest forecast of 16.7 per cent.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew by 10.9 per cent in January this year as against 8.5 per cent in the corresponding month last year.
Gadkari said that the MSME sector contributes significantly in pushing the country's economic growth and creating employment.
The previous low was recorded at 3.8 per cent in May this year.
Electronic equipment production in India will touch $32 billion in 2011, a compound growth rate of 18 per cent from the $14 billion in 2006, according to Gartner.
A likely turnaround in profitability margins in the March quarter (Q4FY23) will not be enough to lift the outlook for paint stocks due to volatile crude oil prices and rising competition in the sector, analysts say. Hence, they advise investors to avoid the sector over the short-to-medium term despite the heavy correction in the stocks since last year. Shares of Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Indigo Paints, Nerolac and Pidilite have shed 6-32 per cent over the last 6 months versus a 3 per cent rise in the benchmark Sensex.
Lumpy Skin Disease has spread in more than a dozen states including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana.
Going forward, the February factory output may be impacted as several industries such as automobiles, technology, pharma and fashion have some exposure to imports of raw and intermediate materials from China.
The mismatch between PMI and core sector could also be due to the fact that while core sector is calculated year-on-year, PMI is calculated month-on-month.
'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'
