'It is building the country's infrastructure, and delivering it very efficiently.'
In a drastic measure to stem any major disruption to the US economy as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, the Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark interest rate to almost zero and said it would buy USD700 billion in bonds. The covid-19 pandemic has sickened more than 156,000 people worldwide and left more than 5,800 dead. The death toll in the US stands at 68, while infections neared 3,700.
While the US-Iran conflict leading to a spike in global oil prices and trade war between the US and the EU topped the chart with 25 per cent, other major risks to the global economy include coronavirus, debt burdens causing a recess across emerging markets and Hong Kong protests causing an exodus from Asia's biggest financial centre.
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.
Even as regulatory focus has zeroed in on foreign e-commerce giant Amazon, a domestic retail giant has been created almost below the radar in Reliance Retail (RR), one of the most crucial businesses for the group's future. From doorstep delivery of groceries, apparels to branded jewellery, medicines, toys, furniture to high street retailing, RR's presence in the world's fourth largest consumer market is just one part of the story.
'Stick to FDs of shorter tenures, preferably one-two years.'
Here's the full text of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to a joint session of the United States Congress, delivered on Thursday.
'In the next one-and-a-half, two months you'll get decent amount of opportunities in the mid-cap and small-cap sector at lower levels.'
Gaurav Garg, head of research at CapitalVia Global Research Limited will answer your stock market queries.
Small stocks of Dalal Street grappled with turbulent times in 2022 as high volatility and higher interest rate regime sapped investors' appetite for these scrips but the horizon ahead seems less cloudy for the New Year. While the 30-share Sensex scaled multiple record peaks with bluechips glittering, small stocks underperformed and the BSE smallcap index declined more than 3 per cent this year. In comparison, the BSE Sensex climbed 2,673.61 points or 4.58 per cent till December 27.
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.
Coming Wednesday, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman will present the 2023 Union Budget - the last full Budget ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While India exited 2022 as a relatively bright spot in the global economy, the FM will endeavour to present a Budget that insulates India's economy against global headwinds and recession in advanced economies, while sticking to the path of fiscal consolidation. In this, she is being helped by her core team of trusted advisors.
With automation taking place at a much faster pace across industries especially in the tech space, domestic software firms that employee over 16 million are set to slash headcounts by a massive 3 million by 2022, which will help them save a whopping $100 billion mostly in salaries annually, says a report. The domestic IT sector employs around 16 million, of them around 9 million are employed in low-skilled services and BPO roles, according to Nasscom. Of these 9 million low-skilled services and BPO roles, 30 per cent or around 3 million will be lost by 2022, principally driven by the impact of robot process automation or RPA. Roughly 0.7 million roles are expected to be replaced by RPA alone and the rest due to other technological upgrades and upskilling by the domestic IT players, while it the RPA will have the worst impact in the US with a loss of almost 1 million jobs, according to a Bank of America report on Wednesday.
'90 per cent of the food and grocery business is still with the kiranas.' 'If kiranas are not allowed to operate, it becomes a serious issue.'
'Its people are either victims of corruption or witnesses to it.'
Sectors such as electronics, pharmaceuticals and automobiles can see supply disruptions in value chain, which may lead to a derailment of the domestic economic growth.
The further expansion and upgrade of the Chinese military does not augur well for India, which continues to confront an increasingly belligerent China on its borders, notes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
India's exports may have touched an all-time high of $422 billion in 2021-22 but recession in key western markets and geo-political crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine war are expected to impact the growth of the country's outbound shipments in 2023. All the global trade promoting factors like political stability, movement of goods, adequate availability of containers and shipping lines, demand, stable currency and smooth banking systems are in disarray. Adding to the woes, COVID cases have again started rising in countries like China, Japan, South Korea and the US.
There is no direct impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on India in terms of bilateral trade but a surge in oil prices poses considerable risk to the economy, an analyst report said on Friday. International oil prices which have surged past $100 per barrel "pose risks to external stability and currency movement," a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report said. Russia has launched military operations against Ukraine, stoking fears of significant disruption in the region, including loss of life. The West is ramping up financial sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine.
Metro rail services may be allowed from September 1 when the 'Unlock 4' phase in the graded reopening from the coronavirus-induced lockdown begins, but schools and colleges will not reopen immediately, an official said.
If they can sit together and hammer out 'Black Sea Initiative' deal for much needed food shipments, surely, they should be able to address the madness of the larger military conflict?
The employment situation remains dire. Whatever can be done to promote greater low-skill employment should be pursued aggressively, advises former chief economic adviser Shankar Acharya.
At a time when crude oil and natural gas prices are sky-high, public sector behemoth ONGC's haphazard planning and mismanagement in developing showpiece deep-sea KG-D5 block is costing the nation over Rs 18,000 crores due to the delayed output of oil and gas, government officials said. ONGC was originally to start gas production from the Cluster-II fields in block KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) in June 2019 and the first oil was to flow in March 2020. But these targets were quietly shifted to end-2021 because of deferments in awarding the fragmented work packages of the project, two officials with direct knowledge of the matter said on condition of anonymity.
The minister emphasised that India will play its due role in advancing global food security and it will do so in a manner in which it upholds equity, displays compassion, and promotes social justice.
'Periods of high volatility are usually bad for mid-caps and this is something that has to be kept in mind.' 'Focus on quality is of paramount importance.'
'For the next two years, we expect the bulk of earnings growth contribution from sectors like financials and energy, where the outlook remains positive, while the sectors which are linked to domestic consumption and are currently witnessing strains on margins have low salience for Nifty earnings.'
Apart from them, consignments of 11 top importers, including LG, Samsung, Toyota, Honda, and Siemens, will also be allowed entry, relieving them of the 100 per cent inspection rule.
Risk aversion is currently a dominant depressant to economic recovery, points out Shankar Acharya, former chief economic advisor to the Government of India.
Tata Motors recently cut the sales forecast of its luxury car brand, JLR, due to chip shortages, scaling down its production numbers from the earlier 120,000 units to 60,000-65,000 units by September, and leading to an almost 10 per cent fall in the company's stock. In May this year, Bosch India, too, had stated that chip shortfalls would impact its production, as supply chains were getting disrupted.
Of the Rs 20-lakh-crore package that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced to defend the economy against coronavirus disruptions, fresh support may be only around 60 per cent of the offer as it counts the first financial stimulus and liquidity support that Reserve Bank has given already, and will overburden the bond market, says a report.
Defying trends, the country's largest private sector lender, HDFC Bank, has shifted its asset mix significantly towards high-rated segments. As a result, its wholesale-to-retail mix has tilted heavily in favour of wholesale, even at the cost of margins. Further, it is even looking to ramp up its branch network, with an aim to service clients within a 1-2 km radius rather than the current 5-6 km radius.
Ramping up e-commerce operations and going beyond its current strongholds are key challenges for the grocery chain in its battle with Mukesh Ambani's retail behemoth.
Today, Vachani's public-listed company, Dixon Technologies, has gone beyond manufacturing just television sets. Armed with private equity funding from Motilal Oswal eight years ago, it has transformed itself into a Rs 4,400 crore electronic manufacturing services major, which now straddles lighting products, home appliances, feature phones, LED bulbs, amongst others. A two-part series looks at how two home-grown manufacturers are leveraging the govt's production-linked incentive scheme.
While the company did not reveal its profit or loss for the period, according to its fillings, food and beverages was the largest category - accounting for 62.23 per cent or Rs 5,184 crore of its total sales.
Gold demand in India dropped by 30 per cent during the July-September quarter to 86.6 tonnes, compared to the same period last year due to Covid-19 related disruptions and ruling high prices, the World Gold Council (WGC) said in a report.
They say that a stimulus package may not be necessary because, unlike last year's total lockdown, public transport, including the railways and airlines, is running and the restrictions on movement are localised and, in some cases, are partial rather than total.
As if wanting to be an antidote to the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian stock market adorned carnival robes in 2021 with a tsunami of liquidity unleashed by global central banks coupled with supportive domestic policies and the world's largest vaccination drive sparking off a world-beating rally on Dalal Street, despite bouts of uneasiness over fizzy valuations. While the wider economy shuttled between recovery and relapse, dictated by multiple mutations of the virus, equity market benchmarks appeared headed in just one direction -- skywards. The dizzying upward journey has added a whopping Rs 72 lakh crore during 2021 to investors' wealth, measured as the cumulative value of all listed shares in the country, taking it to nearly Rs 260 lakh crore.
The move to ban Rs 500 and 1000 notes may not curb the root cause of black money.
The Reserve Bank's growth projection for next financial year is lower than 8-8.5 per cent projected by the finance ministry in the recent Economic Survey which was tabled in Parliament on January 31. Unveiling the bi-monthly policy, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said, "Recovery in domestic economic activity is yet to be broad-based, as private consumption and contact-intensive services remain below pre-pandemic levels."
UN economists announced a likely USD 50 billion drop in the worldwide manufacturing exports in February alone as the extent of the damage to the global economy caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) moved further into focus. Citing the China Manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI), Pamela Coke-Hamilton, who heads UNCTAD's Division on International Trade and Commodities, said that it had fallen to 37.5 -- a drop of about 20 points -- the lowest reading since 2004. "This also correlates directly to exports and also implies a two per cent drop in overall exports," she said, with a resulting "ripple effect" worldwide "to the tune of a USD 50 billion fall in exports."
