Category: Economy

Over half the first-time mutual funds’ (MFs) investors over the last five years have been millennials, says a recent report by Computer Age Management Services (CAMS), India’s largest registrar and transfer agent for mutual funds.

The report, ‘The emerging force of the millennial investor is here to stay & grow’ was prepared by CAMS and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and released at the 17th CII Mutual Fund Summit in Mumbai on May 3, 2023. All insights in the report are based on data of the MFs serviced by CAMS. These account for 69 per cent of the Indian MF industry. The report focuses on millennials who entered the MF space for the first time during the last five financial years.

About 85 lakh investors (54 percent of the 1.6 crore new investors) that started investing in MFs during financial years 2019-2023 were millennials. The millennials who stayed invested through this period had assets worth ₹96,000 crore as of March 2023.

Millennials, also known as ‘Gen Y’, are people born between 1981 and 1996. In sharp contrast to the assumption that this generation is likely to go direct while making investment choices, the study found that 95% of millennials chose advisers or distributors to begin their MF journey.

The Government of India has amended rules under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), bringing international credit card spends outside the country under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS). In addition, from July 1, spending on international credit cards (ICCs) will attract a higher rate of Tax Collected at Source (TCS) at 20%.

Spending in foreign exchange through ICCs will be covered under the Reserve Bank of India’s LRS, under which a resident can remit money abroad up to a maximum of $2.50 lakh per annum without the authorisation of the central bank, said a Union Finance Ministry notification on May 16. Any remittance beyond $2.5 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency would require approval from the RBI.

Earlier, the use of ICCs for making payments for fulfilling expenses during travel outside India was not included in the LRS limit. The ministry notified the Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transactions) (Amendment) Rules, 2023, to include international credit card payments in the LRS.

The Union Budget 2023-24 hiked TCS rates to 20 per cent, from 5 per cent currently, on overseas tour packages and funds remitted under LRS (other than for education and medical purposes).

The Department of Telecom of the Government of India has launched Sanchar Saathi Portal to help people block, track and check the genuineness of a used device before buying them.

“First leg of Sanchar Saathi portal is CEIR (Central Equipment Identity Register). If you lose your mobile phone, then you can visit this portal. There will be some identity verification, requirement of undertaking and immediately after this the portal will interact with law enforcement agencies and telecom service providers and block your lost mobile phone,” said Union Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

A feature of the portal is TAFCOP, which helps people check if there are other mobile numbers working in their name without their permission or knowledge.

The Centre has also made it mandatory to disclose IMEI – a 15-digit unique numeric identifier of mobile devices before their sale in India. The mobile networks will have access to the list of approved IMEI numbers which will check the entry of any unauthorised mobile phones on their network. The CEIR will be able to block any cloned mobile phones on the network with the help of many databases. With the new system in place, it will be futile to use stolen mobile phones. The system developed under Sanchar Saathi can also help in curbing the smuggling of phones.

The Sanchar Saathi facilities have been developed by C-DoT. The technology development arm under the Department of Telecom has been able to add features to check use of cloned mobile phones across all telecom networks.

People in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the hardest working globally and do the longest hours per week as the pandemic has changed the 9 to 5 workplace culture. Nearly half of the workers in the country put in over 49 hours in the office every week, says a Business Name Generator (BNG) study.

The BNG study found the UAE to be the world’s third hardest-working country, with 46.5 percent of workers logging 49 or more hours per week. While the average paid work hours per week total 52.6 in the country.

In the list of 150 countries, Malta tops as a staggering 91 per cent of workers spend 49 or more hours per week, the highest out of all countries studied. Malta is followed by Bhutan, the UAE, Bangladesh, Congo, Mauritius, Lesotho, Maldives, Pakistan and Lebanon. Israel, Austria, Netherlands, and France sit at the bottom of the ranking, with shorter work weeks and minimal overtime contributing to this. “While this may suggest a more laid-back approach to work in these nations, it may also reflect a commitment to work-life balance and a focus on personal well-being,” said BNG.

In addition to its data, BNG included data from the International Labour Organisation on average working hours and the number of workers that regularly work overtime in each country. It noted that the modern work environment has brought about many benefits, such as greater flexibility and the ability to work from anywhere, but has also raised questions about the culture of overworking and its impact on employees.

From May 8, Zimbabwe has begun circulating digital tokens backed by gold reserves that people can use to conduct peer-to-peer payments and transact with businesses, said Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John P Mangudya. International gold prices determined by the London Bullion Market Association will dictate the local pricing of the tokens, he added.

The African nation is introducing local digital tokens to reduce reliance on the US dollar. The tokens will be available to purchase via banks, and transactions will be enabled through “e-gold wallets or e-gold cards” held by banks. There is a vesting period of 180 days, after which the tokens can be traded. The minimum price to purchase digital tokens is $10 for individuals and $5,000 for financial institutions, corporates and other entities, said a press release by the central bank.

Mangudya hopes the tokens offer an innovative new payment option to Zimbabwean citizens. “The issuance of the gold-backed digital tokens is meant to expand the value-preserving instruments available in the economy and enhance divisibility of the investment instruments and widen their access and usage by the public,” he said.

The alternative to the US dollar is a bid to shore up the country’s faltering currency, which is officially valued at around 1,000 Zimbabwean dollars for $1, but can sell at almost double the price in the illegal market.

India aims to establish 100 semiconductor design startups to create innovative solutions and designs for the global market, says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT. The union minister said that the country also plans to create a talent pool of 85,000 highly-skilled professionals in the sector.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar was speaking at the third edition of the Semicon India event, which brought together students, young innovators, industry stakeholders, and other key individuals at IIT Delhi. With a brand-new curriculum in place, he believes India will contribute to the global semiconductor industry while becoming a significant player in the tech space.

The union minister further highlighted India’s progress, underlining that in only 14 months, the country has created opportunities in manufacturing and design. “What China took 30 years to achieve, our government and country want to implement in one decade. The focus has been on moving ‘New India’ from being an outlier on the fringe in the Global Value Chains of electronics to becoming a serious player,” Chandrasekhar emphasised.

India’s semiconductor market is projected to reach $64 billion by 2026. The minister expressed the government’s commitment to ensuring that India participates in every aspect of technological advancements in the coming years.

India is looking to ramp up its exports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a target of $50 billion in exports by the financial year 2026-27. This goal was set during a meeting between India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, and the UAE’s Minister of Economy, Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri.

The UAE is one of India’s top trading partners, and India has been working to strengthen its economic ties with the country. In the financial year 2020-21, India’s exports to the UAE stood at $14.42 billion, with imports from the UAE at $17.77 billion.

The Indian government is now looking to increase exports of various products, including textiles, engineering goods, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and gems and jewellery. It is also exploring opportunities for joint ventures and investments in various sectors such as renewable energy, infrastructure, and food processing.

The UAE has been supportive of India’s efforts to boost exports and has expressed its commitment to strengthening the economic ties between the two countries. The UAE is home to a large Indian diaspora and is an important destination for Indian businesses looking to expand their operations in the Middle East.

In conclusion, India’s target of $50 billion in exports to the UAE by the financial year 2026-27 is an ambitious goal, but it demonstrates the country’s commitment to strengthening its economic ties with the UAE. This target can be achieved with a concerted effort to increase exports of various products and exploring opportunities for joint ventures and investments in various sectors. The UAE’s support for India’s efforts is encouraging, and it is expected that the economic relationship between the two countries will continue to grow in the years to come.

US tech giantsGoogle and Apple once had a war going to get the services of three important engineers, Srinivasan Venkatachary, Steven Baker and Anand Shukla, who play a key role in ramping up the artificial intelligence (AI) services, according to a report by The Information.

The three engineers had previously worked for Apple and were instrumental in modernising Apple’s search technology. They are now with Google and working on large-language models (LLMs), to lower training costs and advance the precision of LLMs and the products based on these models. The report said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai personally wooed the engineers to join his team, while Apple CEO Tim Cook tried convincing them to stay at the company.

Srinivasan Venkatachary studied B.Tech in Computer Science (1992–1996) from IIT Madras, while Anand Shukla completed the same degree from IIT Kanpur.

Apple has not yet revealed its first LLM-based technology, while Google has made its Bard AI available for search in some regions. Microsoft has already started incorporating AI and LLMs into its products like Bing search and Microsoft Office.

From July 1, 2023, the emissions reduction scheme of the Australian government, called the Safeguard Mechanism, will help the country meet its climate targets. The policy is expected to drive down industrial emissions.

A reboot of an existing scheme, the revised scheme will push more than 200 of Australia’s top greenhouse gas polluters to make deep emissions cuts, by nearly 5 per cent a year to 2030 against a baseline or limit set by the government.

The Safeguard Mechanism represents a major turnaround in Australia’s climate policies after years of deep divisions among the main political parties stalled efforts to cut emissions. The most important benefit of the Safeguard Mechanism is the signal that it sends to Australia’s biggest polluters that they have to be pulling their weight on our shared national task to reduce emissions, believe environment experts.

The scheme will make it harder for new fossil fuel projects to get off the ground and likely lead to a boost in green energy investment as big industrial firms look for ways to cut emissions. It covers about 30 percent of the nation’s emissions and applies to operations that produce more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. Its focus is on 215 polluting entities like coal mines, gas fields and gas processors, aluminium smelters and steel mills, making them keep their net emissions below baseline. Entities that exceed their baseline can buy carbon credits from the government or from entities that have succeeded in cutting emissions by more than the required annual amount. 

Group of Seven (G7) advanced nations should adopt “risk-based” regulation on artificial intelligence, their digital ministers agreed on April 30. However, the ministers said that such regulation should also “preserve an open and enabling environment” for the development of AI technologies and be based on democratic values.

The top tech officials from G7 – Britain, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – met for G7 Digital and Tech Ministers’ Meeting in Takasaki, a city about 100 km northwest of Tokyo, Japan, on April 29-30. In a joint statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting, the digital and technology ministers recognised that “policy instruments to achieve the common vision and goal of trustworthy AI may vary across G7 members.” The agreement sets a landmark for how major countries govern AI amid privacy concerns and security risks.

European lawmakers have been pushing for an AI Act to enforce rules on emerging tools such as ChatGPT. “The conclusions of this G7 meeting show that we are definitely not alone in this,” European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said in an interview ahead of the agreement.

Governments have been led by the popularity of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI that has become the fastest-growing app in history since its November launch.

In the statement, the block said that it plans to convene future discussions on generative AI, which could include topics such as governance, how to safeguard intellectual property rights such as copyright, promote transparency, address disinformation like information manipulation by foreign forces.