Category: Economy

It is estimated that more than Rs 1,000 crore will be spent by various Delhi government agencies on the preparations for the G20 (Group of 20) summit and related events to be held in the city this year, officials said.

The Indian capital will host the main summit meeting of the G20 countries and seven other related events, starting in March, during the country’s G20 presidency. The preparations that will include upgrading the civic infrastructure and beautification work among other measures by various departments of the city government and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will cost Rs 1,084 crore.

The Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia has written a letter to the Centre, seeking a grant of Rs 927 crore to take up special development projects for the G20 summit. According to the officials, 26 Delhi government departments and central agencies are working on the preparations for the summit.

The Public Works Department (PWD), Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the NDMC will mainly be associated with civic infrastructure improvement and beautification work. It is estimated that the PWD, the MCD and the NDMC will spend Rs 448 crore, Rs 249 crore and Rs 78 crore, respectively, on their work. The Tourism Department of the city government has planned various events and programmes and estimated a budget of Rs 72 crore.

The non-convertible green municipal bonds of Indore Municipal Corporation were oversubscribed by 5.90 times after raising about Rs 720 crore till the last date for application for the bonds. The issue opened on February 10 and closed on February 14.

Indore is India’s first urban body to introduce green bonds, seeking to raise Rs 244 crore to install and operate the plant of 60 megawatts in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district. It is expected to be the largest solar plant meant for pumping and supplying water from river Narmada. In response, the Indore Municipal Corporation raised Rs 661.52 crore on the first day itself. “The investors and commoners have overwhelmingly responded to the green bonds,” tweeted Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Green bonds are debt securities issued by a public or private organisation to finance or refinance projects that have a positive impact on the environment. Uttar Pradesh’s civic body Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam had issued India’s first green municipal bond for setting up of a tertiary water treatment plant.

The Indore civic body was expecting 10 to 15 times oversubscription of its bonds against the 1.26 times witnessed in 2018 when the city became the first city in India to list municipal bonds on the National Stock Exchange’s debt securities platform.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first phase of the 1380-km, eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai expressway on February 12. The 246-km Delhi-Dausa-Lalsot section will be open to the public, reducing the travel time from the national capital to Jaipur from five hours to about three hours.

The expressway passing through Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat will reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai from over a day to just 12 hours. The expressway is also set to benefit various cities along the way, cutting down travel times between them as well. The Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, in a tweet said that the Sohna-Dausa stretch of the highway “will enable a hassle-free 2-hour journey between Delhi and Jaipur”. The reduction in distance and travel time is set to result in annual fuel savings of more than 320 million litres and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 850 million kg, the Ministry estimates. More than two million trees and shrubs are also planned to be planted along the highway.

The expressway is being constructed with an initial budget of Rs 98,000 crore. The work on the expressway started in 2018 and is set to be completed by the end of 2023. Depending on the volume of traffic the expressway sees, there are plans in place to expand it to a 12-lane expressway in the future.

India has called on Group of 20 (G20) nations to adopt ‘3S’ strategy, i.e., ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’ agriculture which should ‘serve’ all, to address global food security concerns.

Speaking on the sidelines of the first G20 Agriculture Deputies’ Meeting in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on February 14, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that agriculture for India has always been a priority, and for the world it has fully come to the fore now. For smart agriculture, he emphasised on adopting drones and other new technologies for increasing the crop yield. For sustainable agriculture, he advised that farmers should focus on achieving higher yields, using better inputs besides focusing on advanced technologies and marketing.

The minister said that India has made significant progress in agriculture, and is the top nation in the world in milk production, second in vegetables and fruits, and third in food grains production.

The first Agriculture Deputies’ Meeting of the Agriculture Working Group (AWG) under India’s G20 presidency was held in Indore from February 13-15. The second day of the meeting held deliberations on four key priority areas of food security and nutrition; sustainable agriculture with climate smart approach; inclusive agriculture value chain and food supply system; and digitisation of agriculture transformation. The next meetings of G20 AWG are likely to be held in Chandigarh, Varanasi and Hyderabad.

Air India on February 14 announced its plans to acquire 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing in deals potentially worth tens of billions of dollars. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have hailed Air India’s multi-billion dollar deal to buy planes from Airbus and Boeing.

During the video call with Macron, Modi described the agreement with Airbus as an important achievement for the bilateral strategic partnership and said, “Today, the India-France partnership is playing a direct role in ensuring international order and a stable and balanced multilateral system.”

Macron pointed to bilateral cooperation in areas such as space, cyber, defence, health and energy transition, and said, “Now, we have the historic opportunity to go much further, given the potential of India and the Indian people.” There is a “deep commitment” in France to provide state-of-the-art and efficient technologies to India, and be part of the “Make in India” strategy, he said.

Later, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch also welcomed the deal. Joe Biden underlined how the Air India-Boeing deal will support over one million American jobs across 44 states, and help Air India meet growing demands for air transportation in India.

Modi invited Boeing and other US companies to make use of opportunities arising from India’s expanding civil aviation sector. The two leaders further agreed to bolster people-to-people and to remain in contact to ensure the success of India’s G20 presidency.

India has regained the fifth place among the world’s top equity markets by value after being briefly taken over by France.

India’s market capitalisation stood at $3.15 trillion on February 10, making France and the UK the world’s sixth and seventh largest markets by value, respectively, says the data compiled by Bloomberg that shows the combined value of companies with a primary listing in each country. The outlook for earnings growth helped revitalise the appeal of India’s equities that have outperformed most global contemporaries for the last two years. Nevertheless, the total value of India’s market was about 6% lower than January 24.

In another positive development for the Indian equity markets, foreign investors seem to have regained some confidence and were net buyers during two of the seven sessions this month through February 9. The development came after the government announced higher capital spending outlay in the Union Budget 2023. The new quarterly earnings season was also fairly positive and market analysts estimate that earnings per share at MSCI India companies will increase 14.5 per cent this year. Though this is similar to China, it is better than most major markets around the world, said the Bloomberg data.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that increased metal recycling can bring down the cost of auto components by 30 per cent and automatically increase the industry’s export competitiveness.

Addressing the three-day conference of the Material Recycling Association of India on material recycling on February 3 through videoconferencing, the minister said the government has set a target of doubling the size of the automobile sector to Rs 15 lakh crore and creating an additional 5 crore jobs. India overtook Japan to become the world’s third largest automobile market in 2022.

The international conference in Kochi was attended by over 2,000 delegates from across the world.

Noting that India faces shortages in copper, aluminium and steel, Nitin Gadkari encouraged the recycling industry to get into joint ventures with foreign companies so that the scale of the industry that is highly unorganised can increase. He also appealed to the automobile manufacturers to set up large scrapping units and offered them concessions at the forthcoming new dry ports in Wardha, Sangli and Kolhapur in Maharashtra. Noting that the whole world is adopting a “waste to wealth” philosophy, he said the government will do everything to encourage more imports of scrap so that our shortage of key metals can be addressed.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash has said that over ₹477 crore have been approved to 133 incubators under Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) as of December 31, 2022. Of the approved amount, around ₹211 crore has been disbursed. Among Indian states, Maharashtra-based incubators were allocated the highest amount at ₹74.5 crore, said the government data.

The Government with an intent to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, startups and encouraging private investments in the startup ecosystem of the country launched Startup India initiative on 16th January 2016. The flagship schemes under Startup India initiative namely, SISFS, Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS) extend support to startups at various stages of their business cycle. The startups, thereafter, are able to raise investments from angel investors or venture capitalists or seek loans from commercial banks or financial institutions. The SISFS has been implemented from 1st April 2021. The scheme has been approved with a corpus of Rs. 945 crore for the period of four years starting from 2021-22.

The Government also implements flagship annual exercises and programs, including States’ Startup Ranking, National Startup Awards and Innovation Week, which play an important role in the holistic development of the startup ecosystem.

India is playing an increasingly important role in global oil markets by buying cheap Russian oil and refining it into fuel for Europe and the US, said a Bloomberg report on February 5.

India shipped about 89,000 barrels a day of gasoline and diesel to New York last month, the most in nearly four years, said data intelligence company Kpler. The country supplied 1,72,000 barrels of low-sulfur diesel to Europe daily in January.

Under EU guidelines, India is likely operating within the rules. When Russian crude is processed into fuels in a country outside of the bloc such as India, the refined products can be delivered into the EU because they are no longer considered to be Russian. The Group of Seven nations wants to cut Russia’s revenue as much as possible, but also wants its oil and refined products to flow into the market to avoid a global supply crunch.

The experts quoted in the report expected India’s importance to expand after the fresh European Union sanctions on Russian petroleum exports. The ban is expected to remove a huge volume of diesel from the market, and witness more consumers, especially in Europe, look to Asia to cover the supply gap. This will make inexpensive Russian oil even more appealing to countries like India. Indian refiners, including public sector undertakings that have to deliver to domestic demand, raised their exports last year to profit from higher international prices, said the report. India itself relies on imports to meet around 85% of its crude needs.

Foreign Minister of South Africa, Naledi Pandor has said that many nations across the globe are showing interest in joining the BRICS. Pandor, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, said this, while addressing delegates at the first BRICS Sherpa and Sous-Sherpa meeting of 2023 in Bela Bela, Limpopo province in South Africa.

“The significant interest in joining BRICS by many is a clear sign that BRICS has remained true to its values of strengthening multilateralism, driving reform as well as boosting global economic growth and stability,” Pandor said.

BRICS, an economic bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, was formed on June 16, 2009. South Africa joined BRICS in December 2010.

South Africa took over the chair of BRICS from China at the beginning of this year and will host the 15th BRICS Summit from August 22 to 24. The country has selected the year’s theme as ‘BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Multilateralism’.

Pandor said that with the pandemic eroding decades of development and the world facing geopolitical contestation, attention from global challenges that should be collectively addressed is diverting. “We need to combat the effects of climate change. We need to help the African continent finally silence the guns. These are the challenges of the most desperate in the world,” she said.