Page 16 - India Economy

Crude oil imports from Russia plunge in December on payment issues

After rising to an all time record of 2.15 million barrels a day in May, oil imports from Russia fluctuated downwards, experiencing a sharp decline between November and December

California walnut imports witness sharp uptick after India's tariff removal

Chile is currently the top walnut supplier to India

Rupee settles flat at 83.20 against dollar amid volatile crude oil prices

The rupee paired all its early gains to end on a flat note at 83.20 (provisional) against the US dollar amid increased month-end dollar demand from importers and volatile crude oil prices. At the interbank foreign exchange, the domestic currency opened at 83.14, touched the peak of 83.10 and hit the lowest level of 83.22 against the greenback during intra-day deals. The local unit closed the session at Thursday's closing level of 83.20 (provisional) against the dollar. The domestic currency jumped 14 paise on Thursday. The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading lower by 0.13 per cent at 101.36 on Friday. Anuj Choudhary, Research Analyst at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, said the US dollar recovered slightly on short coverings but declined again on expectations of interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve. The rupee is likely to trade with a slight positive bias on the weak tone of the US dollar and declining crude oil pric

Govt hopeful of 'bountiful harvest' amid food inflation headwinds

With India's farm sector remaining resilient to erratic weather conditions, the government is hopeful of having bountiful food grain production even as it tries hard to keep a lid on food inflation ahead of general elections in 2024. From floods to droughts, extreme weather events this year have not only raised fears over foodgrain production but also created an artificial supply scare that forced the government to take a slew of pre-emptive measures, including export curbs on certain commodities. Besides, the government subsidised the sale of a few commodities to improve domestic supply and arrest the sharp spikes in retail prices of wheat, rice, edible oils, pulses, tomato, and onion. While the efforts to control food prices are still on, the government is closely watching the prospects of rabi (winter) crops, especially wheat and pulses, which are sown now and will be ready for harvest closer to 2024 general elections in April-May. Food inflation remained at an elevated level ..

Kolkata restaurants see surge in footfall during Christmas-New Year week

City-based restaurants are experiencing a surge in customer footfall during the Christmas-New Year week from December 24-27, according to an official of the Hostel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India (HRAEI). HRAEI president Sudesh Poddar said crowd turnout is expected to improve further leading up to the New Year. The association reported a 15% increase in food consumption, with customers patiently waiting for three to four hours to savour their favourite dishes. Poddar mentioned that his own fine dining restaurants, Manthan and Manthan Songhai, continue to have full house with customers waiting patiently for hours. Bar-cum-restaurant owners have requested the government to extend the closing time till 2 am until January 1 and urged patrons not to drive their vehicles to comply with the administration's road safety request. Nitin Kothari, owner of Peter Cat, Mocambo, and Peter Hu?, said after Durga puja, there was brief slump, but customer response has been exceptionally

LIVE news: BJP national secretary Anupam Hazra removed from his post

Catch all the latest news updates LIVE from across the world

Indian poultry industry revenues to grow by 8-10% in FY24, says report

The Indian poultry industry's revenue is expected to grow by 8-10 per cent in 2023-24, mainly driven by healthy volume growth and improvement in realisations, a report said on Tuesday. The revenue growth expectations of the domestic poultry industry are likely to be at 8-10 per cent in FY24, which will be led by significant volume expansion and improving share of organised players, rating agency Icra said in a report. While realisations were strong in H1 FY23, they started tapering afterwards due to excess supply, said the report. Subsequently, the pick-up in demand in the current fiscal resulted in improvement of average realisations to Rs 107 per kg in H1 FY24 compared to Rs 101 per kg in FY23, said the report adding that the festive season and cold weather will support demand and realisations in the remaining fiscal year. "While realisations improved in H1 FY24, following controlled supply and healthy demand, players' earnings were further supported by softened feed costs. Maize

Indian businesses gearing up for responsible AI adoption: Nasscom

Nearly 60 per cent of businesses surveyed reported having either matured Responsible AI (RAI) practices and policies or having initiated formal steps towards adoption of such responsible practices, according to a report by industry body Nasscom. About 30 per cent reported having basic awareness of RAI imperatives without a formal strategy or framework, the report said citing the early insights on the state of RAI in India. Based on analysis of the data collected through a survey of over 500 senior executives from across large enterprises, SMEs and startups engaged in the commercial development and/or use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in India, the report offers a glimpse into the beliefs and perceptions of the tech industry about its key strengths and areas for improvement when it comes to compliance with the benchmarks for RAI adoption. The rising need for RAI among AI users and stakeholders is compelling industry leaders to invest in advanced RAI tools and strategies while ...

MGNREGA spend spike, subsidies to lead to fiscal slippage in FY24: Report

Despite the handsome growth in tax collections, there is a possibility of a fiscal slippage in FY24 because of higher spends on employment guarantee scheme and subsidies, a domestic rating agency said on Tuesday. India Ratings and Research, which is a unit of international rating agency Fitch Ratings, said the fiscal deficit for FY24 will come at 6 per cent, as against the budgetary target of 5.9 per cent. "Higher-than-budgeted revenue expenditure triggered through the first and likely second supplementary demand for grants in combination with lower-than-budgeted nominal GDP will push the fiscal deficit," the agency said in a note. It said the fiscal slippage will happen despite higher tax and non-tax revenue collections, and also added that these will be more than sufficient to offset the lower-than-budgeted divestment proceeds. In the first supplementary demand, the union government will spend more on prioritised areas/sectors such as food, fertiliser and LPG subsidy and Mahatma

Govt cleared 746 PLI applications till November for different sectors

As many as 746 applications have been approved till November 2023 under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes for 14 sectors such as pharma, white goods, and electronics, an official statement said on Tuesday. The schemes for 14 sectors were announced with an outlay of Rs 1.97 lakh crore to enhance India's manufacturing capabilities and exports. The commerce and industry ministry said that beneficiary companies have set up units in more than 150 districts (24 states) and over Rs 95,000 crore of investment has been reported till September, which has led to production/sales of Rs 7.80 lakh crore and employment generation of over 6.4 lakh. "746 applications have been approved till November 2023... Incentives worth around Rs 2,900 crores have been disbursed in 2022-23. There has been a value addition of 20 per cent in mobile manufacturing within a period of 3 years," the statement said. It added that of the USD 101 billion worth of total electronics production in 2022-23, ...

LIVE: Priyanka Gandhi replaced as UP in-charge in Congress reshuffle

Catch the latest news updates from across the world

Traded bond outstanding rises to $2.47 trn in July-Sept quarter: Report

The country's total debt, or the total outstanding bonds which are being traded in the market, rose to USD 2.47 trillion (Rs 205 lakh crore) in the September quarter, according to a report. The total debt amount in the March quarter of the previous fiscal was USD 2.34 trillion (Rs 200 lakh crore). The central government's debt stood at USD 1.34 trillion, or Rs 161.1 lakh crore, in the September quarter, up from USD 1.06 trillion, or Rs 150.4 lakh crore, in the March quarter, Vishal Goenka, Co-Founder of Indiabonds.com, said, quoting data provided by the Reserve bank of India. Indiabonds.com, which was launched in 2021, is a Sebi-registered online bond platform that provides investing solutions. The report is a collation of data from the RBI, Clearing Corporation of India, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India. At Rs 161.1 lakh crore, the central government's debt constitutes the highest 46.04 per cent share of the total amount. State governments' debt share was 24.4 per

Share of agriculture in India's GDP declined to 15% in FY23: Govt

Share of agriculture in India's GDP declined to 15 per cent last fiscal year from 35 per cent in 1990-91 due to rapid growth in the industrial and service sector, the government informed on Tuesday. "The share of agriculture in total Gross Value Added (GVA) of economy has declined from 35% in 1990-91 to 15% in 2022-23. The decline is brought out not by the decline in agricultural GVA but a rapid expansion in industrial and service sector GVA," Union Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. "In growth terms, agriculture and allied sector has registered an average annual growth of 4 per cent during last five years. As far as global experience is concerned, share of agriculture in the world's GDP has also declined over the decades and stands at about 4 per cent in recent years," he added. The minister said the government has adopted/implemented several developmental programmes, schemes, reforms and policies towards increasing agricultural productivity, ...

India will become third largest economy in my next innings: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday listed the four castes he wants to empower while repeating his guarantee to make the country the third largest economic superpower during his third innings in power. Modi was addressing a rally in his parliamentary constituency, where he also made a reference to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which he will make his bid for the third consecutive term in office. "For decades, the entire region of Purvanchal was lying neglected. With the blessings of Mahadev, Modi is engaged in serving you, he said at the event where he launched development projects worth over Rs 19,000 crore. Some months from now, there will be elections in the entire country. And Modi has given a guarantee to the country that in his third innings, he will make Bharat the third largest economic superpower in the world, he said. The prime minister said for a developed India, it is important to develop the country's women power, youth power, farmers and the poor. The PM has bee

ICRA revises FY24 GDP growth forecast to 6.5%, still below RBI's estimate

Domestic rating agency Icra on Monday revised its FY24 GDP growth forecast to 6.5 per cent from 6.2 per cent earlier. However, the revised forecast is still much lower than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) 7 per cent real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth estimate for the ongoing fiscal. Earlier this month, the RBI had revised upwards its GDP estimate to 7 per cent from 6.5 per cent, calling the revised number a "conservative" one. The rating agency did not specify reasons for the lower growth estimate made in its business activity monitor. The revision is being done because Icra feels the deflation in commodity prices will be sustained and there are expectation of better growth in the October-December period than previous estimates, it said. "The festive-led uptick in volume growth in high frequency non-agri indicators as evinced by ICRA Business Activity Monitor in October-November 2023 (11.3 per cent versus the 9.5 per cent in Q2FY24) leads us to believe that the GDP growt

Debates on India's progress more important than vishwa guru claims: Rajan

Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, who has often been trolled for his frank views, says ideas and opinions of critics should be attacked but not their motives, as for India's progress listening was more important than preaching like a know-all vishwa guru. In an interview with PTI, Rajan defended joining Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' saying he very strongly believed in the ideas of national integration and of love, not hate and thought the 135-day foot march was an attempt to make that point. Rejecting as "just ridiculous" the charge by government backers that he was responsible for some of the mess in the economy that Prime Minister Narendra Modi inherited, he said he had brought down inflation from double digits and had cleaned up the bad debt which the government is taking credit for now. He also stuck to his comment -- 'India will be lucky if it achieves 5 per cent growth in 2023-24 fiscal year', saying the country was indeed lucky to achieve a 6.5 per cent

Gen AI can add up to $1.5 trillion to India's GDP over next 7 years: Report

Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) has the potential to add a cumulative USD 1.2-1.5 trillion to India's Gross Domestic Product over the next seven years, according to a report by EY India. The report, titled 'The AIdea of India: Generative AI's potential to accelerate India's digital transformation', provided insights into the industry's preparedness and challenges in embracing Gen AI. Generative AI can potentially add a cumulative USD 1.2-1.5 trillion to India's GDP by FY2029-30, as per the report. "The report forecasts that by fully capitalising Gen AI technology and its applications across sectors, India can potentially add USD 359-438 billion in FY2029-30 alone, reflecting a 5.9 per cent to 7.2 per cent increase over and above baseline GDP," it said. Nearly 69 per cent of the overall impact is expected to be derived from sectors such as business services (including IT, legal, consulting, outsourcing, rental of machinery and equipment, and others), financial services,

Sri Lanka's economy records positive growth for first time since crisis

Sri Lanka's bankrupt economy has recorded a positive growth for the first time since the economic crisis hit the island nation, according to official data. The year-on-year GDP growth rate for the third quarter has been reported as 1.6 per cent of positive growth rate, the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) said in a press release on Friday. Sri Lanka had recorded a minus 8 per cent growth when it declared bankruptcy in April 2022. The country's economy continued to be in the negative from the fourth quarter of 2021. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which released the second tranche of its USD 2.9 billion bailout earlier this week, has said that Sri Lanka's overall growth for 2023 would remain negative. However, the country's economy in 2024 is expected to grow with a positive one plus growth, it said. Sri Lanka is currently going through a strict IMF based reform regime. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, insists on reforms despite stro

India's growth story is going to be distinctive and unique: Rohit Jawa

At the 188th Foundation Day Celebration by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Jawa said in his keynote address that India's digital landscape is a key accelerator for growth

No slacking: Indians work long, are willing to put in more hours

Never mind work-life balance: this generation spends more time on the job than ever before