Category: Economy

Singapore is open to the possibility of importing electricity from countries in the region, including India, said a report quoting the Energy Market Authority (EMA) on August 13.

The EMA, a statutory board under the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry, has welcomed proposals to import as much as 4 GW of electricity, added the news report. The body is seeking bids till December 29 and will choose and appoint companies to import the electricity.

Previously, India and Singapore had accelerated plans to set up a connection between their power grids through an undersea cable via the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, helping India supply renewable energy to Singapore. The supply would help address the problem of power market instability in the city-state.

Alternative sources of electricity are needed in Singapore to ensure a reliable and affordable power supply. In the past, it had said it would explore a variety of options, including regional power grids, for expanding its renewable energy due to land scarcity and intermittent solar power.

Media reports add that India has also been in talks with Saudi Arabia and the UAE about connecting their power grids to trade renewable energy.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced that the tourists who were forced to leave the island of Rhodes after recent wildfires will be given a free one-week holiday there.

In a TV interview on August 2, Mitsotakis said the tourists could take up the offer in the spring or autumn of 2024. Not a single human life was lost in Rhodes, and no injuries were reported in the wildfires, he added.

Local people and travellers were forced to flee their homes and hotels during the wildfires that destroyed the island in July. About 20,000 tourists were rescued from the wildfires, making the operation the largest evacuation undertaken by the country.

Greece depends heavily on tourism to generate revenue. Rhodes is the ninth-largest island in the eastern Mediterranean. It is also a famous holiday destination and so crucial for the country’s economy that relies heavily on tourism to generate revenue.

The Greek Prime Minister mentioned that the region was always prone to wildfires, but in recent years, climate change had increased the intensity of the natural calamity. July was recorded as the hottest month in human history, with the UN stating that we had entered the era of ‘global boiling.’ 

Inflation in Sri Lanka dropped to 6.3% in July from 12% in June, said the Census and Statistics Office of the Sri Lankan government on July 31. The country saw a single-digit figure for the first time in two years.

The drop in headline inflation is according to the disinflation path predicted by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) in July 2023. A statement from the Census and Statistics Office said that the decrease in the cost of food commodities led to the decline in inflation. Based on the Colombo Consumer Price Index, food prices fell by 1.4% over the past 12 months in the island country.

The last time Sri Lanka recorded single-digit inflation in September of 2021 – at 5.8%. The highest inflation its economy recorded was 69.8% in September 2022. The CBSL said that inflation is expected to moderate further and stabilise around the targeted level over the medium term.

In 2021-22, Sri Lanka faced its worst economic crisis in history due to a shortage of foreign exchange reserves. During the forex crisis, the country curtailed imports, leading to shortages and high prices. The International Monetary Fund bailout of $2.9 billion in March 2023 led to a relaxation in import restrictions and action to end power shortages, improving the situation significantly.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has released its media rights tender for the Indian team’s bilateral matches in the country. The tender document is available for purchase until August 25. The Invitation To Tender (ITT) can be purchased upon submission of a non-refundable fee of Rs 15 lakh.

In the ITT, BCCI has reduced the overall base price to Rs 45 crore per match for the forthcoming media rights cycle. In the recent cycle, the base price stood at Rs 61 crore per match for Disney-Star. The base price is for TV and digital, and for all the formats of international cricket Team India will play at home in the next five years.

In the auction, BCCI is offering 88 cricket matches – 25 tests, 27 ODI, and 36 T20Is – in the current cycle of five years.

For the last bilateral rights cycle (2018-23) floated by BCCI, the Indian cricket board saw valuations touching Rs 6,138 crore – a rise of over one-and-a-half times – with each bilateral match valued at Rs 61 crore. In 2018, Disney Star retained the BCCI media rights for the five-year cycle, surpassing Sony.

The Government of India is in talks with the Bhutanese regime over the rail link between Bhutan and Assam, informed External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar on August 7. The union minister added that Bhutan is keen to open up more places for tourists and that the rail link is advantageous for Assam as well.

To be completed by 2026, the 57-km railway line will be the first railway connection between India and Bhutan. The Indian government will fund the project. Bhutan’s Foreign Minister Dr Tandi Dorji said in April that the Bhutan government will first work on this project, and later look at connecting other regions like Samtse, Phuentsholing, Nganglam, and Samdrupjongkhar.

Dr S Jaishankar said that the government is also looking to conclude the coastal shipping agreement with Myanmar this year. He, however, added that the Myanmar Trilateral highway is a big challenge due to the law-and-order situation in the country.

The Myanmar Trilateral highway is an initiative that will connect India, Thailand and Myanmar. India is undertaking the construction of two sections of this highway in Myanmar. It will construct a 120.74 km Kalewa-Yagyi road section and 69 bridges along the approach road of the 149.70 km Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa road section.

Israel will build a 100 billion shekel ($27 billion) rail expansion that will connect its remote areas to the city of Tel Aviv and could provide overland links to Saudi Arabia in years to come, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on July 30.

The announcement came after a visit of top US officials to Saudi Arabia in July to advance a possible forging of formal relations between the Kingdom and Israel. In a weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, Netanyahu promoted infrastructure initiatives, including the “One Israel Project.”  The Prime Minister of Israel said the project is designed to reduce travel time by train to the country’s business and government centres to two hours or less.

He added that in the future, the country will also be able to transport cargo by rail from Eilat to the Mediterranean, and link Israel by train to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula.

The plan, according to Israel’s finance minister, is to complete the high-speed, north-south rail link within the next ten years.

The gross domestic product of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia grew by 1.1% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022 due to non-oil activities that increased by 5.5% annually in the quarter.

The non-oil sector is a focus area under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, as the Kingdom aspires to steadily diversify its economy that has been dependent on oil for several decades. 

According to General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), government services activities increased by 2.7% in the second quarter, while oil activities dipped by 4.2% on an annual basis.

The fall in oil activities was chiefly due to the decision taken by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) to reduce oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day. In the cuts, Saudi Arabia pledged to reduce output by 500,000 bpd. The country also announced an additional cut of 1 million bpd for the month of July in June.

The International Monetary Fund, citing prolonged oil output cuts, slashed its 2023 GDP growth projection for Saudi Arabia to 1.9% in June. In its World Economic Outlook update, the IMF revised its growth forecast for the country to 2.1% in June from its earlier prediction of 3.1% in May.  

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that it would “encourage” India to remove restrictions on export of a certain category of rice. The restrictions could exacerbate food price inflation and should be reversed, said the International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas in Washington on July 25.

On July 20, The Government of India had banned the export of non-basmati white rice to boost domestic supply and keep retail prices under check during the upcoming festive season. This type of rice constitutes about 25 percent of the total rice exported from India. The Union Food Ministry, in a statement, had said that there would be no change in export policy of par-boiled non-basmati rice and basmati rice, which forms the bulk of exports. Gourinchas said that, in the current environment, these types of restrictions are likely to exacerbate volatility on food prices in the rest of the world, and can also lead to retaliatory measures.

The total exports of non-basmati white rice from India was $4.2 million in 2022-23 as against $2.62 million in the preceding year. Major destinations of India’s non-basmati white rice exports include the US, Thailand, Italy, Spain and Sri Lanka.

To ensure adequate availability of non-basmati white rice in the domestic market and alleviate the rise in local prices, the Government has amended the export policy from ‘Free with export duty of 20%’ to ‘Prohibited’ with immediate effect.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Oman Investment Authority (OIA) and plans investments worth $5 billion in Oman.

The MoU aims at expanding cooperation and investment between the two investment entities, enabling new and promising investments in Oman’s rapidly growing economy. It follows the establishment of the Saudi Omani Investment Company, to allocate $5 billion for investments across various promising sectors in Oman. In addition, the PIF’s investment portfolio will be expanded in the Omani market, to stimulate investments in the country due to new international strategic economic partnerships.

Oman is one of the fastest-growing economies in the Middle East and North Africa region. The PIF also seeks to increase its investments in the Gulf nation through different asset classes within targeted sectors.

The MoU was signed in Riyadh and was attended by OIA President Abdulsalam Al Murshidi, PIF Governor Yasir Al Rumayyan, Ambassador of Oman to Saudi Arabia HH Sayyid Faisal Al Said, and Undersecretary for Investment Promotion at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion Ibtisam Al Farooji. Based on the MoU, OIA will explore investment opportunities and provide support to PIF.

Al Murshidi in a statement called the memorandum a confirmation of the commitment of Oman and Saudi Arabia to strengthen partnerships and an endeavour to enhance economic integration, achieve sustainable development and advance economic investments in the region.

The Government of India has launched the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS)-Sahara Refund Portal to refund the hard-earned money of crores of depositors in four cooperative societies of Sahara Group in about 45 days.

Calling the portal a historic moment, Cooperation Minister of India Amit Shah on July 18 said that this is the first time when depositors are getting refunds in a case where multiple government agencies are involved and each one has done a seizure.

On March 29, the Government of India had said that money will be returned to 10 crore investors of the four cooperative societies within nine months. The announcement followed a Supreme Court order directing transfer of Rs 5,000 crore from Sahara-Sebi refund account to the CRCS.

To begin with, the depositors would get up to Rs 10,000 refund. Subsequently, the amount would be enhanced for those who have invested higher amounts. The corpus of Rs 5,000 crore would be able to take care of the needs of 1.7 crore depositors in the first phase.

About 2.5 crore people have deposits of up to Rs 30,000 in the four cooperative societies, namely Sahara Credit Cooperative Society Ltd, Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Society Ltd, Humara India Credit Cooperative Society Ltd, and Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd.

The portal is developed by a subsidiary of IFCI and requires the depositor’s Aadhaar registration with mobile and Aadhaar-linking with the bank account where refund is to be deposited.