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Fractious politics can slow reforms and derail policymaking, and contentious elections can encourage the prioritisation of short-term growth, Fitch Ratings said on Monday as a large number of nations go to the polls. In its Global Sovereigns Outlook 2024, Fitch highlighted that a large number of elections are scheduled in 2024, including Bangladesh, Croatia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the US. UK elections must be before the end of January 2025. "Fractious politics can slow reforms and derail policymaking, and contentious elections can encourage the prioritisation of short-term growth objectives over longer-term structural initiatives," it said. Fitch said lower inflation might not help incumbents much, given prices remain well above pre-pandemic levels in most countries. The international environment is marred by two major conflicts entering 2024, neither of which appears to be on
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday pitched for a "regulatory impact assessment" to study the positives and negatives of a decision before it is taken, and also for existing rules. She said having such a facility can help enhance the transparency and accountability in the policymaking process. "We may also have a regulatory impact assessment to critically assess the positive and negative effects of proposed and existing regulations and non regulatory alternatives," she said, speaking at an event here. Time limits to decide the applications under various regulations should also be named in the interest of ease of doing business, she added. Regulatory actions may vary from disclosure to light touch regulation and supervision to tight regulation and full fledged supervision depending on the risk implications, she said. "Quality, proportionality and effectiveness of regulations matter the most for ease of doing business," she said. Sitharaman said the main focus of ..