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BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - December 2015

Dec 2015

Jan 20, 2020

Mastercard To Invest $1 Bn In India Over 5 Years Towards Tech Development

  •  Global payments company Mastercard has planned to invest nearly $1 billion in India over the next five years towards the development of new technologies and products.
  • Both of these facilities catered to the company's global operations, of which Vadodara provided the backend multiple payments support. The company was looking to expanding the Pune centre.

Airport Contracts Could be Capped at 2 Per Company

  •  As per reports, private bidders, vying for future airport privatisation projects, are likely to be restricted to a maximum of two in each round of auction.
  • The proposed rules are set to be implemented before the next round of airport privatisation that the government is planning.
  • The review of the rules comes after Adani Enterprises Ltd, the company controlled by billionaire Gautam Adani, snapped up all six contracts for upgrading airports in 2019 despite having no experience in running them.

PF Benefits Should be Extended to Contractual Employees

  •  The Supreme Court held in a judgment that the benefits of the provident fund should be extended to contractual employees.
  • A bench of Justices U. U. Lalit and Indu Malhotra held that employees who draw wages or salaries directly or indirectly from a company are entitled to provident fund benefits under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Act.
  • The judgment came on the basis of a petition filed by M/s Pawan Hans Limited, a government company which provides helicopter support services to the oil sector for its offshore exploration operations, services in remote and hilly areas, and charter services for the promotion of tourism.

Govt. May put curbs on sale of liquor at duty-free shops

  •  The government is considering a proposal of the commerce ministry to reduce the permitted quantity of tax-free foreign liquor and cigarettes purchased from a duty-free shop in line with the practice followed by countries such as the United States, China, South Korea and Singapore.
  • The proposal was part of the larger exercise to curtail import of non-essential goods into the country.

Essel to Sell Two Road Assets to NIIF-Roadis

  • Essel group had begun talks with NIIF, India's sovereign wealth fund, and Roadis to sell part of its road portfolio after discussions with Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Canada's second-largest pension fund manager (CDPQ) fell through last summer. Essel had previously agreed to sell three of its road projects to CDPQ at an enterprise value of Rs. 3,300-3,500 crore.
  •  The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and its joint venture partner Roadis are close to buying two road projects from Essel Infraprojects, wholly owned by Subhash Chandra's debt-laden Essel group, in a deal valued at an estimated Rs. 1500-1800 crore.
  • Discussions with the Essel group began soon after NIIF and Roadis created a joint platform in April 2019 that would invest in road projects in India.
  • This joint venture could invest up to $2 billion as equity in public roads in India, by targeting toll-operate-transfer models, acquiring existing road concessions and investment opportunities in the road sector with the aim of creating a large roads platform in the country.

Jan 19, 2020

Yes Bank Ratings Put Under Review

  • Moody's has placed Yes Bank's long-term foreign currency rating under review as the private sector lender struggles to raise capital. Moody's also placed the bank's long-term foreign and local currency bank deposit ratings of B2, and its foreign currency senior unsecured MTN program rating of (P)B2, under review, with the direction uncertain. The Baseline Credit Assessment was also downgraded to 'Caa2' from 'B3'.

Amazon to Create 1 mn New Jobs in India

  • World's largest online shopping platform Amazon announced plans to create one million new jobs in India over the next five years as it firefights comments from Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on the firm not doing a favour to the country by making the investments.
  • The new jobs - created both directly and indirectly - will be across industries, including IT, skill development, content creation, retail, logistics, and manufacturing.
  • These jobs are in addition to the seven lakh jobs Amazon's investments have enabled over the last six years in the country.

Piramal Enterprises Sells Overseas Arm

  • Piramal Enterprises signed an agreement for the sale of its Decision Resources Group (DRG) business to US-based Clarivate Analytics for $950 million (over Rs. 6,745 crore).
  • This divestment is expected to be completed by end of February 2020.
  • This includes $900 million on closing and $50 million to be received at the end of 12 months from the date of closing.

Jio Becomes India's Largest Telco

  • Reliance Jio is now the number one telecom operator in India by both subscriber- base as well as revenue market share, achieving the feat after a little over three years of operations.
  • The Mukesh Ambani-led company added 5.6 million mobile subscribers in November, taking its total to 369.93 million, and replacing Vodafone Idea as the country's largest mobile services provider by subscribers.
  • With this, Jio holds a 32.04% share of subscribers in the over 1.15-billion-user Indian mobile services market. It had a 30.79% market share at the end of October 2019.
  • Unlike its rivals, Jio's user-base is entirely made up of 4G subscribers.
  • To be sure, the company had already become the number one in terms of revenue market share in 2019 when it grabbed 31.7% share of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) that the industry recorded in the April-June period.

Jan 18, 2020

NCLT Approves Takeover of Frontier Lifeline

  • The UAE-based First Step Ventures is set to take over Frontier Lifeline Private Ltd, after its Rs. 75-crore resolution plan was approved by a division bench of the National Bench of the Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Chennai.
  • Promoted by senior cardiac surgeon K. M. Cherian, the company runs the 100-bed Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai. The hospital and Dr. K. M. Cherian Heart Foundation also promoted the 360-acre Medical Science Park, Frontier Mediville, at Elavur village in Tiruvallur district. It was the first medical research park in the country, and also a medical special economic zone (SEZ).

Higher GST Mop-up Target Set

  • Enforcement actions have multiplied and pressure has mounted on revenue officers to augment GST collections in the remaining period of the fiscal.
  • Directing field officers to go after fraudsters and non-filers using data analytics, the Revenue Department has fixed the GST target for January and February 2020 at Rs. 1.15 lakh crore each while the March collection is to be Rs. 1.25 lakh crore.
  • About 40,000 companies had been red-flagged for availing excess or fraudulent ITC (input tax credit) and other tax-related wrongful issues, through data analytics.

Jet Airways to Sell Netherlands Business

  • Bankrupt Jet Airways plans to sell its Netherlands business to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The carrier, which shuttered operations in April 2019, is undergoing insolvency resolution process. The insolvency resolution professional managing the affairs of Jet said that various options are being explored for the company's resolution. The company said that there is a separate liquidation proceeding ongoing in the Netherlands. In this context, the company and Dutch trustee have entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement with Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij NV, for the proposed resolution of business activities of the company in the Netherlands as approved by the committee of creditors.

GM to Sell Talegaon Plant to Great Wall Motors

  • General Motors agreed to sell its Talegaon manufacturing facility to Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors (GWM). This signals the end of GM's manufacturing operations in the country. The acquisition is part of the Chinese company's plans to expand its operations as it faces slowdown in the domestic market.
  • Under a binding term sheet signed, the GM India legal entity, which includes the Talegaon facility, will be transferred to GWM.
  • GWM Global Strategy Vice-President Liu Xiangshang said that the transaction would underpin the company's plan to enter and invest in India.

China in Elite $10,000 Per Capita GDP Club

  • China's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) crossed $10,000 for the first time in 2019 and it could become a high-income economy by 2023 or 2024.
  • The Chinese economy grew at 6.1% in 2019, its lowest GDP growth in 29 years. Yet, China's importance in the global economy cannot be overemphasised. The Chinese economy accounts for almost 30% of the global GDP growth. Both in terms of per capita GDP and global contribution to growth, China is now far ahead of India, although the gap has been plateauing in the recent years.

Alphabet 4th US Company to Hit $1 Trillion Mark

  • Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet, Google's parent company, joined the elitist club of US companies with $1 trillion valuation which includes Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.
  • The iPhone maker was the first US company to hit the $1 trillion threshold in 2018.
  • Alphabet founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced plans to step down in December 2019, elevating Pichai as both Alphabet and Google CEO.

Jan 17, 2020

SEBI Proposes Tough New Regulations for Investment Advisers

  • Markets watchdog SEBI proposed a new set of norms for investment advisers, under which they will have to split their advisery and product distribution activities. The regulator suggested that investment advisers should not come out with any investment advice suggesting assured returns to clients in the investment advisory document. SEBI also suggested mechanisms for charging fees from clients and proposed to raise the net worth requirement for advisers. The new set of proposals is intended to strengthen the regulatory framework for investment advisers.

Supreme Court Dismisses Telcos Plea Seeking Relief from AGR Dues

  • In a setback to telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone-Idea, the Supreme Court dismissed their plea seeking a review of its earlier order asking them to pay Rs. 1.47-lakh crore in past statutory dues of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) by January 23.
  • The apex court verdict may force Vodafone-Idea to shut shop, as the company has already made huge investments and there is not much to gain from its operations, due to steep competition from Reliance Jio and Airtel.

SEBI Proposes Tough New Regulations for Investment Advisers

  • Markets watchdog SEBI proposed a new set of norms for investment advisers, under which they will have to split their advisery and product distribution activities. The regulator suggested that investment advisers should not come out with any investment advice suggesting assured returns to clients in the investment advisory document. SEBI also suggested mechanisms for charging fees from clients and proposed to raise the net worth requirement for advisers. The new set of proposals is intended to strengthen the regulatory framework for investment advisers.

RBI to Buy, Sell G-Secs Worth Rs. 10,000 crore Each

  • The Reserve Bank of India will buy and sell government securities worth Rs. 10,000 crore each next week in wake of the current liquidity and market situation. The simultaneous sale and purchase will be done under Open Market Operations (OMO) next week. Eligible participants can submit their bids/offers on the Reserve Bank of India Core Banking Solution system on January 23. The result of the auctions will be announced on the same day.

China's Economic Growth Hits Three-Decade Low

  • China's economy in 2019 grew at the slowest pace in almost three decades.
  • Official figures showed that the world's second largest economy expanded by 6.1% in 2019 from the year before - the worst figure in 29 years.
  • The country has faced weak domestic demand and the impact of the bitter trade war with the US.
  • The government has been rolling out measures over the past two years in an attempt to boost growth.
  • It comes after almost two years of trade tensions with the US - although hopes of a better relationship with America have seen improvements in manufacturing and business confidence data.

Beijing Calls for New Solutions

  • According to China, there was a need to find new solutions to the trade deficit with India after latest statistics from Chinese customs revealed that the deficit accounted for more than 60% of bilateral trade in 2019.
  • As per an official from China's General Administration of Customs, India's trade deficit with China was $56.8 billion in 2019, adding that it was important that the two countries strengthen cooperation.
  • The trade deficit in 2018, according to the official Chinese data, was $ 57.86 billion while in 2017 it was $51.72 billion.

Jan 16, 2020

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Announces $1 Billion Investment To Digitise Small, Medium Businesses

  • Amazon.com Inc chief Jeff Bezos announced USD 1 billion (over Rs 7,000 crore) investment in India to help bring small and medium businesses online and committed to exporting USD 10 billion worth of India-made goods by 2025.
  • Before this, the online retail giant had committed USD 5.5 billion investments in India - Amazon's most important market outside of the US and a key growth driver.

WEF Survey

  • The five biggest long-term risks facing the world are environmental in nature, while the immediate risks that are expected to increase in 2020 are economic, a new survey showed.
  • Geopolitical turbulence is propelling us towards an 'unsettled' unilateral world of great power rivalries at a time when business and government leaders must focus urgently on working together to tackle shared risks.
  • For the first time in the report's 10-year outlook, the top five global risks in terms of likelihood are all environmental -- extreme weather events, human-made environmental disasters, major biodiversity loss, natural disasters, and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
  • In comparison, the top global risks a decade ago were dominated by threats to the global economy and financial system.
  • For the short-term, the top risks that are likely to rise in 2020 are economic confrontations, domestic political polarization, extreme heat waves, destruction of natural resource ecosystems and cyber attacks.

RBI Asks Issuers To Provide The Possibility To Turn The Cards On And Off To Avoid Fraud

  • RBI asked banks and other card issuing companies to provide facilities for customers to turn their debit or credit cards on and off, a measure aimed at improving the security of digital transactions.
  • As over the years, the volume and value of transactions made through cards have increased, at the time of issuance or reissue, all cards (physical and virtual) should be enabled for use only at points of contact of use (ATMs and point of sale devices (PoS)) within India.
  • Issuers must provide cardholders with a facility to allow non-present (domestic and international) card transactions, present (international) card transactions, and contactless transactions.
 

WEF Survey

  • The five biggest long-term risks facing the world are environmental in nature, while the immediate risks that are expected to increase in 2020 are economic, a new survey showed.
  • Geopolitical turbulence is propelling us towards an 'unsettled' unilateral world of great power rivalries at a time when business and government leaders must focus urgently on working together to tackle shared risks.
  • For the first time in the report's 10-year outlook, the top five global risks in terms of likelihood are all environmental -- extreme weather events, human-made environmental disasters, major biodiversity loss, natural disasters, and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
  • In comparison, the top global risks a decade ago were dominated by threats to the global economy and financial system.
  • For the short-term, the top risks that are likely to rise in 2020 are economic confrontations, domestic political polarization, extreme heat waves, destruction of natural resource ecosystems and cyber attacks.
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