The international community counts a lot on India’s leadership of the G20 (Group of 20) at a time when the world is faced with the continued economic slowdown and social distress, said the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva. “India, which is the president of G-20 countries, remains among the countries that perform better than the global average and by a good percentage,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters during a media roundtable on Thursday. Lauding India for embracing digitization, Georgieva said, “What we see working ex
A consortium led by Adani Group has completed the purchase of Port of Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea in northern Israel for 4 billion shekels ($1.15 billion), said Israel’s Finance Ministry on Tuesday. The Adani Group outbid Chinese and Turkish companies for the right to purchase the port. Israel announced in July it would sell the port in Haifa, a major trade hub on the Mediterranean, to winning bidders Adani Ports and local chemicals and logistics group Gadot. Haifa Port is one of Israel’s main seaports. The sale of the port has taken five years, and culminates the nearly two-deca
India handed over 75 passenger buses to Sri Lanka on January 8 as a part of assistance to strengthen the public transport infrastructure of the debt-ridden country. Under the Neighbourhood First policy, India has been extending multi-pronged assistance to pull Sri Lanka out of the worst economic and humanitarian crisis it has seen since its independence in 1948. The island nation, with a population of about 22 million, has been battling shortages of essentials, from fuel to food, for months. In May 2022, the country declared that its foreign exchange reserves had dropped to a record low, a
India’s wheat production is set to make a record in the current fiscal as all-time high prices prompted farmers to expand planting areas, and opt for high-yielding varieties. The experts suggest that production could rise to 112 million tonnes because of the higher area and favourable weather. Scientists and traders have projected good weather conditions to be another factor for the bumper wheat production. India is the world's second largest wheat producer. Led by the higher output, the country may consider lifting a ban on exports of the staple. It will help ease concerns over persiste
Remittances from overseas Indians increased by 12 per cent in one year, taking it to $100 billion for the year 2022, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention in Indore on Tuesday. Calling the NRIs as the “real ambassadors of India,” the Union Minister appealed to them to use Made in India products and services as far as possible. “Within a year, which was post-pandemic, people thought Indian workers will not go back abroad again; they have not only gone back, but more have gone for very useful employment and the remittance numbers
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
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
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 “1
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
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