Category: Economy

India has been designated as the world’s fastest growing economy with the World Bank’s projection of its growth rate at 7.3% for the year 2018.
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to countries of the world for capital projects. The Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group flagship report that examines global economic trends, developments and prospects, with a special emphasis on upcoming markets and developing economies.
After five consecutive slow quarters, India’s GDP growth bottomed out in the middle of 2017 and finally rose vigorously in 2018. This acceleration of pace for India in the current fiscal year is supported by strong private consumption and increase in public spending on wages and infrastructure investments. Moreover, private investment is expected to revive as the private sector adjusts to the Goods and Services Tax and a global trade recovery lifts exports. India is said to be growing at a rate faster than its assessed potential.
Ayan Kose, Director, Development Prospects Group at the World Bank stated, “India’s economy is robust, resilient and has potential to deliver sustained growth.”
He also added, “In terms of economic growth, the fact that India is able to deliver a robust consumption growth, robust investment… All these are good news. The big issue is now that India has a potential to sustain this growth and we are optimistic about India to realize that potential.”

Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority and UAE Central Bank announced the launch of common digital currency ‘Aber’ to forge closer financial ties. On 29th Jan 2019, both the apex monetary bodies released a joint statement mentioning that the new digital currency will be used in financial statements between the two countries through Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers technologies.

This new digital currency also serves as an additional medium for financial remittances between the two countries. In the initial stages, this pilot project concentrates on the technical aspects and focuses on the practical application of the modern technologies and finding out their impact on the reduction of remittance costs and assessment of technical risks involved in it and ways to deal with them. Initially, the use of this digital currency will be restricted to a limited number of banks in each state. If no technical issues are encountered, economic and legal requirements for future users will be discussed. It is the first time when monetary authorities of both countries are cooperating to use blockchain technology. With the implementation of the project, it is also possible to use the system as an additional reserve system for the settlement of domestic central payments in case of any disruption.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval of USD 75 Billion for entering into a Bilateral Swap Arrangement (BSA), a currency swap agreement, between India and Japan thereby authorizing RBI to sign an agreement between Reserve Bank of India and Bank of Japan.

The agreement is concluded between the premiers of both the countries at a summitlevel meeting at Yamanashi, Japan. It is essentially meant to exchange and re-exchange a maximum amount of USD 75 Billion for maintaining the appropriate levels of the balance of payments for meeting short-term deficiencies in foreign payments.

This arrangement enables both countries to use the agreed amount of capital. Such an agreement is an exemplar mutual cooperation between the two countries for helping each other.

Singapore companies have awoken to a hunger that’s been acquiring companies globally, from real estate to engineering. Comparing to the figure of last year’s US$41.9 billion, the overseas deals this past September are almost double at US$91 billion. The increase in deals was 7.8% to about 468 deals this year. This far outweighed the number of global mergers and acquisitions that only grew by 2%. China remains a prime target for Singapore companies like Temasek, GIC, Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd., CapitaLand Ltd., etc. as they have invested heavily in various Chinese companies.

The number of these transactions increased more than five times its previous value from US$3.8 billion to US$19.5 billion.

Facebook, the online social media and social networking service company has announced a new digital currency called Libra, for simplifying payments. This new digital currency is based on the blockchain technology and allows billions of users to make financial transactions across the globe. It’s a simple digital currency and financial infrastructure that is developed to create a more inclusive financial system. Its three most promising features are:

1. It is created on a completely secure, scalable and reliable blockchain.
2. It’s backed by a reserve of real assets that are meant for building trust in its intrinsic value.
3. It is governed by an independent Libra association that consists of diversified businesses, non-profit and multilateral organizations and academic institutions.

For every Libra created, a cache of bank deposits and shortterm government securities is set aside in Libra Reserve. This reserve will be administered by Libra Association that will ensure preserving the value of the currency. The initial members of this association will work for finalizing the association’s charter and become the ‘founding members’ upon its completion. The current members include Mastercard, PayPal, PayU, Visa, Stripe, eBay, Facebook, Lyft, Spotify AB, Uber, Vodafone Group, Bison Trails, Coinbase, Inc., Xapo Holding, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Kiva, Mercy Corps, Women’s World Banking, etc.

For many banks, payment wallet companies & credit card companies, this could be a real game changer. With more than 2.40 billion worldwide Facebook users, this new digital currency is set to revolutionize the global payments and transfers.

The United Arab Emirates recently launched the “Golden Card” Permanent Residency Scheme for expatriates. The scheme, launched by the UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, is meant to pursue and attract wealthy individuals and exceptional talents such as doctors, engineers, scientists, students and artists from all over the world.

Dubai’s ruler took to social media and stated, “We want them to be permanent partners in our journey. Residents are an indispensable part of our country. The first batch of 6,800 investors with Dh100 billion worth of investments will be granted the “Golden Card.”

According to General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, Director General of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai (GDRFA), the department has started issuing permanent residency to the first batch of qualified individuals from over 70 countries.

The scheme of “Golden Card” comes after the last year’s announcement that the country would grant five or ten year residency visas to investors, entrepreneurs, doctors, scientists, and outstanding students to facilitate business and investment environment. The scheme offers a permanent residency with a slew of unprecedented benefits.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval of USD 75 Billion for entering into a Bilateral Swap Arrangement (BSA), a currency swap agreement, between India and Japan thereby authorizing RBI to sign an agreement between Reserve Bank of India and Bank of Japan.

The agreement is concluded between the premiers of both the countries at a summit level meeting at Yamanashi, Japan. It is essentially meant to exchange and re-exchange a maximum amount of USD 75 Billion for maintaining the appropriate levels of the balance of payments for meeting short-term deficiencies in foreign payments.

This arrangement enables both countries to use the agreed amount of capital. Such an agreement is an exemplar mutual cooperation between the two countries for helping each other.