Category: Economy

Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s biggest producers of palm oil, have agreed to work together to fight “discrimination” against the commodity. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said this after meeting Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Indonesia on Monday. Anwar was visiting Indonesia on his first overseas tour since taking office in November.

Joko Widodo said the two countries would also strengthen cooperation through the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries to address concerns.

During their bilateral meeting, Anwar and Jokowi signed eight memorandums of understandings covering shipping, export-import financing, green energy, the development of battery industry, which they said they hoped would deepen cross border trade and investment.

In recent years, concerns over the mass clearing of tropical rainforests, destruction of endangered wildlife habitats, land conflicts with indigenous communities, and labour rights abuses have fuelled consumer campaigns against products containing palm oil.

The Asian leaders also discussed the development of Indonesia’s planned new capital, Nusantara, located in the Indonesian port of Borneo. Anwar gave 11 letters of interest from Malaysian companies related to possible investment in the new city. He said that the new capital could boost regional development, as the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak are located in the Malaysian part of Borneo Island. 

Under its Group of Twenty (G20) presidency, India is set to host the foreign ministers’ meet in Delhi in March 2023.

The 2023 G20 Delhi summit is the upcoming eighteenth meeting of G20. Scheduled to take place in Pragati Maidan, it is expected to host leaders from member countries.

India’s G20 presidency will see more than 200 meetings across 55 locations, culminating with the annual G20 summit on 9-10 September. The first G20 meeting — the Sherpa meet — was held in the first week of December in Udaipur, Rajasthan.

The 55 locations for the meetings span big metros to smaller cities, including those rich in history and scenic beauty such as Hampi and Khajuraho. The locations will also include Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities that have picturesque landscapes and are rich in cultural heritage. These cities will get spruced up as part of the preparations for the G20 meetings.

In an earlier statement, MEA said the Presidency is also a chance for the G20 Secretariat to provide the country’s citizens with the unique opportunity be a part of India’s G20 story. The Indian G20 presidency has also planned a year-long ‘India Experience’ for G20 member countries, special invitees, and others.

Dubai on January 4 announced an ambitious plan aiming to boost foreign trade and investment, and double the size of its economy by 2033.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, unveiled in a series of tweets, the Dubai Economic Agenda, dubbed “D33”, with targets totalling 32 trillion dirhams ($8.7 trillion). The plan would “double the size of Dubai’s economy in the next decade and consolidate its position among the top three global cities,” Sheikh Mohammed said in a post. The objectives would be achieved through “100 transformative projects,” he tweeted.

The new economic agenda would also add 400 cities to Dubai’s list of trading partners, increasing foreign trade in the coming decade by 44% to 25.6 trillion dirhams. According to Sheikh Mohammed, it would also see foreign direct investment in Dubai exceed 650 billion dirhams within 10 years.

Despite its warning that a third of the world’s economy will slip into recession in 2023 amid slowing growth in the United States, the European Union and China, the International Monetary Fund in November predicted “robust” economic growth in the UAE, with projected GDP growth of 6% in 2022. Dubai’s GDP stood at 307.5 billion dirhams during the first nine months of 2022, showing a 4.6% rise year-on-year from 2021.

In 2022, the sales of domestic passenger vehicles (PV) in India increased by 23% to 37.93 lakh units to become the highest ever sales in the industry for a calendar year. Last year’s record sales beat the sales of 33.3 lakh in 2018.

The sales were led by Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors, which recorded their best sales on the back of pent-up demand and better semiconductor chip supply. The 2022 sales are 23.1 per cent more than that of 2021. The 2022 figure is about 14 per cent higher than the previous highest.

The highest growth in annual domestic PV sales was witnessed by Tata Motors, Kia India and Toyota Kirloskar at 58.2 per cent, 40.2 per cent and 22.6 per cent, respectively, according to the companies’ data. The biggest carmaker of the country, Maruti Suzuki posted a 15.4 per cent growth in annual domestic PV sales at 1.579 million units. The manufacturers count wholesales, the units dispatched to dealers, as sales.

On the basis of price, about 40% of vehicles sold in the industry were in the bracket of Rs 10 lakh or above, the carmakers said in a statement.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission with an allocation of ₹19,744 crore, aimed at producing 5 million tonne of green hydrogen annually by 2030.

Out of the total allocation, the Centre would provide incentives worth ₹17,490 crore for production of both electrolysers and green hydrogen for five years. The other outlays are ₹1,466 crore for pilot projects, ₹400 crore for R&D, and ₹388 crore towards other Mission components, said an official statement. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) will formulate the scheme guidelines for implementation of the respective components.

The government expects the mission to attract investments worth ₹8 trillion by 2030 and create 6 lakh jobs. Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that the mission would also result in reduction in greenhouse gas emission by nearly 50 million tonne annually and save India ₹1 trillion in its fossil fuel imports.

The mission is aimed at making India a hub for both manufacturing and exports of green hydrogen. It will have wide-ranging benefits apart from creation of export opportunities for green hydrogen and its derivatives, such as decarbonisation of industrial, mobility and energy sectors, reduction in dependence on imported fossil fuels and feedstock, development of indigenous manufacturing capabilities, job creation and development of cutting-edge technologies.

India has now overtaken China in terms of number of visitors to Singapore, becoming the second highest number of visitors arriving in the island nation. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, China had the highest number of tourists visiting Singapore.

According to Singapore Tourism Board (STB), 6,12,300 visitors from India arrived in Singapore till November 2022. These tourists also stay the longest with an average length of stay of 8.61 days compared with an average of 5.19 days.

Indonesia is the largest source of foreign visitors to Singapore with 9,86,900 visitors up till November, while Malaysia is in third place with 495,470, followed by Australia (476,480) and the Philippines (325,480).

The Indians stay much longer compared to visitors from these four countries. Indonesians on an average stay for 4.66 days, while Malaysians stay for 4.28 days, and Australians for 4.05 days. Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and the Philippines together account for 48% of total arrivals to Singapore.

In 2019, Singapore was the fifth most visited city in the world, with over 19.1 million visitors. It then had over 3.6 million visitors from China, making Chinese tourists Singapore’s largest tourism source. The reopening of China could bring more tourists to Singapore.

The Uttar Pradesh government has signed Memorandums of Understandings (MoUs) with six UAE-based companies worth Rs 18,590 crore, according to the statement released by the state government. The MoUs will help in creating more than 20,000 employment opportunities.

Astha Green Energy Venture and Shree Siddharth Infratech and Services will invest Rs. 4,480 and Rs. 8,000 crore, respectively, in the renewable energy sector, and create 2,560 and 4,800 new jobs. Sharaf Group and Hindustan Port will invest in the Logistics Park sector. Their investments will be Rs. 1,300 crore and Rs. 210 crore, respectively, and generate 1,500 and 1,000 jobs, the statement added. Lulu Group will invest Rs 4,500 crore in retail and food processing sectors, creating 10,000 jobs, while Sobha Realty will invest Rs 100 crore in education and CSR and create 250 jobs.

The UP Government has received investment proposals worth over Rs 7.12 lakh crore ahead of the Global Investors Summit (GIS) scheduled in Lucknow in February. Ahead of the GIS 2023, eight teams of the Uttar Pradesh government visited 16 countries, receiving investment proposals totalling more than Rs 7.12 lakh crore. The largest share of investment proposals worth Rs. 4 lakh crore has been received from the UK and the USA.

National Skill Development Corporation of India and TakaMol Holding of Saudi Arabia have launched the Skill Verification Program (SVP) in India. The SVP aims to verify Indian professional workers for the required qualifications and skills for their professions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Under the SVP, a competency-based exam (theoretical and practical) across 17 benchmarked occupations such as welding, electrician, HVAC, and plumbing will be held to assess and raise the quality of skill and productivity in the Saudi labour market. Five professions, such as plumber, electrician, welder, refrigeration/air conditioning technician, and automobile electrician, are selected for the skill testing in the first phase, say reports from Saudi Arabia. The tests of skilled workers will be carried out for the Indian workers before they could apply for a Saudi work visa.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development of Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation, launched the SVP in March 2021. The SVP is an effort to improve the professional competence of the skilled workers in the Saudi employment market, enhance their productivity, improve the quality of their professional services, bring down the influx of unqualified workers into the market, and contribute to developing their skills according to international standards.

India is aiming to double the size of its automobile industry to Rs 15 lakh crore by the end of 2024, making it one of the world’s top countries in this sector, said Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday. Currently, India’s automobile industry is Rs 7.5 lakh crore.

Speaking at a virtual session of Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nitin Gadkari said that his ministry will carry out project works worth Rs 5 lakh crore in 2023, of which Rs 2 lakh crore will come from the government and the rest will be raised from the capital market. The union minister said the majority of automobiles in the country will run on alternative fuels by 2030, and the government is working on developing alternative, clean and green fuels such as bio-ethanol, bio-CNG, bio-LNG and green hydrogen.

In his address, Nitin Gadkari highlighted the success of the listing of Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT), which drew huge interest from investors. He also underlined his focus on reducing the cost of construction with improved quality with greater use of recycled materials such as plastics, rubber, and others.

Women entrepreneurs have been benefited the most under the government’s Stand-Up India scheme, with 80.2% of bank loans sanctioned till early December going to women-led businesses since the scheme’s launch in April 2016, said the government data shared in Parliament.

According to the data shared by the Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad in the Rajya Sabha recently, 1,59,961 loans under Stand-Up India were sanctioned to entrepreneurs as of December 2, 2022. Of these, 1,28,361 loans were sanctioned to women entrepreneurs, while 23,797 loans were sanctioned to scheduled caste (SC) entrepreneurs and 7,803 to scheduled tribe (ST) entrepreneurs.

The scheme was launched to promote entrepreneurship among the SC, ST and women by facilitating bank loans between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore to at least one SC/ST borrower and one woman borrower per bank branch for setting up greenfield enterprises in manufacturing, services, trading sector and activities allied to agriculture. As of March 2022, Rs 30,160 crore were sanctioned under the scheme to 1,33,995 beneficiaries since the inception of the scheme, of which Rs 24,809 crore was sanctioned to 1,08,250 women entrepreneurs, Rs 3,976 crore to 19,310 SC beneficiaries, and Rs 1,373 crore to 6,435 ST entrepreneurs.