General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - October 2018

Oct 2018

May 05, 2019

Tata Chem to Expand Capacity

Tata Chemicals, part of the $110 Tata Group is planning to invest Rs. 2,100 crore in the next three years to expand its salt making capacity in India by 50% and soda ash capacity by 25%, besides various other bi-products.
Besides, the company has decided to spend another £50 million to set up a new bicarbonate plant to offset its challenging pension liabilities of £80 million.

Voda Idea to Seek Shareholders Nod

Vodafone Idea said that it would seek shareholders' approval to transfer optical fibre assets to a wholly owned subsidiary, Vodafone Towers Ltd.
The firm has proposed to hive off telecom fibre infrastructure to Vodafone Towers before monetising it and approached the National Company Law Tribunal Ahmedabad for approval.

ICRA Downgrades Yes Bank's Long-term Rating

Rating agency ICRA has downgraded the long-term rating of private sector lender Yes Bank with negative outlook after the lender reported significant increase in below investment grade advances, which could impact the bank's profitability in the coming quarters.
Yes Bank reported its first-ever quarterly loss of Rs. 1,506 crore during the January-March period.

May 04, 2019

R.K. Studios Sold to Godrej Properties

R. K. Studios at Chembur in Mumbai, an iconic location which used to be the film studio of late actor and film-maker Raj Kapoor, will undergo real estate development. It was set up by the legendary actor more than 70 years ago in 1948.
Godrej Properties, the real estate development company of the Godrej Group, has acquired the 2.2 acre land for an unspecified amount to develop a mixed-use project.
This project will offer approximately 33,000 square metres (approximately 0.35 million square feet) of saleable area comprising modern residential apartments of various configurations as well as a luxury retail experience, Godrej Properties said in a regulatory filing with stock exchanges.

India Extends Retaliatory Tariff Deadline

The government has again extended its deadline to impose retaliatory import duties on 29 U.S. products, including almonds, walnuts and pulses, till May 16.
As per a Finance Ministry notification, implementation of increased customs duty on specified imports from the U.S. has been postponed from May 2 to May 16, 2019.
These deadlines have been extended several times since June 2018, when India decided to impose duties in retaliation to a U.S. move to impose high customs duties on certain steel and aluminium products.

GSP Benefits to India

The U.S. should not terminate the GSP programme with India after the expiry of the 60-day notice period, a group of 25 influential American lawmakers urged the U.S. Trade Representative, warning that companies seeking to expand their exports to India could be hit.
The Generalised System of Preference (GSP) is the largest and oldest U.S. trade preference programme designed to promote economic development by allowing duty-free entry for thousands of products from designated beneficiary countries.
In March 2019, President Donald Trump had announced that the U.S. intended to terminate India's designations as a beneficiary developing country under the GSP programme.
The 60-day notice period ended on May 3.

Asia-Pacific Growth

According to Takehiko Nakao, President and Chairperson, Asian Development Bank, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at 5.7% this year but escalating trade tensions are a source of worry,
Addressing the opening session of the Board of Governors at ADB's 52nd Annual Meeting, Mr. Nakao said that consumer and investor behaviour could be undermined by trade tensions between countries.

RBI Imposes Fines on PPIs

The Reserve Bank of India has slapped monetary penalty on five pre-paid payment instrument issuers including Vodafone m-pesa and Phonepe, for violating regulatory guidelines.
A penalty of Rs. 3.05 crore has been imposed on Vodafone m-pesa and Rs. 1 crore each on Mobile Payments, PhonePe and G.I. Technology Private Ltd.
Also, a penalty of Rs. 5 lakh has been imposed on Y-Cash Software Solutions.
In a separate statement, the central bank said it had imposed a penalty of Rs. 29.67 lakh on Western Union Financial Services Inc. USA, and Rs. 10.12 lakh on MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc, USA, for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines.
The penalties on Western Union and MoneyGram had been imposed by the central bank under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for compounding of the contravention.

May 03, 2019

PNB Housing Finance to Mop up $1 Billion

PNB Housing Finance said it would raise up to $1 billion from foreign markets, and an additional Rs. 10,000 crore by issuing bonds. A board meeting in the next few days will consider approval of fund raising by way of external commercial borrowings up to $1 billion in one or more tranches. The board will also consider the issuance of secured and unsecured non-convertible debentures up to Rs. 10,000 crore in tranches.

JSW Forays into Paints Business

JSW Group has forayed into the Rs. 42,000-crore organised paints business in the country with the launch of JSW Paints.
JSW Paints is a greenfield venture backed by technology, automation and scale. The company aims to be among the top three players in the next five years.
The company will manufacture and market both industrial coatings as well as decorative paints.

Bharti Re-launches AirtelThanks

Bharti Airtel re-launched its 'AirtelThanks' customer rewards programme that segregates users across three tiers — silver, gold and platinum. The higher the tier, the more the benefits.
The company has also launched a Rs. 299 'industry first' offer, where prepaid customers will get Amazon Prime membership along with 2.5 GB data per day, and unlimited calls for 28 days.
Silver tier is an entry to basic content such as AirtelTV and Wynk, while gold customers get access to add-on telecom benefits, and 'great value access to premium content'.

Gold Buying in 2019

Central banks across the globe are building up gold reserves with the first quarter of 2019 seeing significant buying from such entities.
According to the latest Gold Demand Trends report by the World Gold Council, central banks bought 145.5 tonnes of gold in the first quarter, a 68% jump from the same period in 2018 and also the strongest start to a year since 2013.
Meanwhile, the overall global gold demand rose to 1,053.3 tonnes in the first quarter of 2019, up 7% compared to the same period last year.

Banks Can Declare Defaulting IL&FS Accounts as NPAs'

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) allowed the banks to declare as non-performing assets (NPAs) the accounts of IL&FS and its group companies that have defaulted on payments.
A bench headed by Chairman Justice S. J. Mukhopadhaya lifted the embargo on the banks to declare the accounts of the debt-ridden IL&FS and its 300 group entities, which are unable to pay their debt.
However, the appellate tribunal has also clarified that although the banks would declare the IL&FS accounts as NPAs, they cannot initiate recovery process and debit money.
The bench has observed that lenders must not withdraw support until a resolution is found for the IL&FS and its group companies.

May 02, 2019

Patanjali Gets More Time for Bid

Patanjali Ayurved sought more time from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to file a detailed resolution plan for edible oil firm Ruchi Soya, which it has agreed to take over for Rs. 4,325 crore.

Tablez Plans to Open Toy Stores in India

As part of the plan, Tablez opened the first store in Chennai at Phoenix Market.
Tablez, the brand retailing arm of Dubai-based LuLu Group International, is planning to set up 20 Toys 'R' Us shops in India.
The rest will be opened in different parts of the country within a year.
The Chennai store is the seventh in the series.

Huawei Beats Apple

China-based Huawei outsold Apple's iPhones in the first quarter of this year, seizing the California company's second place spot in a tightening smartphone market dominated by Samsung.
A total of 310.8 million smartphones were shipped globally during the first three months of this year in a 6.6% decline from the same period in 2018, according to preliminary data from the Chinese-owned International Data Corporation.

UDS Buys stake in Matrix

UDS gained entry into Matrix by buying out the entire 19.77% stake of Kotak Mahindra Investments and 2.67% of Mahindra & Mahindra Contech. It acquired the balance 52.56% from non-executive shareholders.
City-based UDS (Updater Services Private Limited), a facilities management services firm, has acquired a 75% stake in Matrix Business Services, another city-based firm which is operating in the business assurance and background verification services space.
Following the deal, UDS gets to nominate three representatives on the five-member board of Matrix.

L&T Buys Siddhartha's Stake

Larsen & Toubro has bought about 20% stake held by V.G. Siddhartha and Coffee Day in Mindtree through a block deal for about Rs. 3,210 crore. L&T has bought 32.7 million shares at Rs. 980 apiece.

Top Oil Supplier to India

According to data sourced from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Iraq sold 46.61 million tonnes (mt) of crude oil to India during April 2018 and March 2019, 2% more than 45.74 mt it had supplied in 2017-18 fiscal.
Iraq has, for the second year in a row, become India's top crude oil supplier, meeting more than a fifth of the country's oil needs in 2018-19 fiscal year.

May 01, 2019

Core Sector Growth

Growth in the core sectors of the economy surged in March to a five-month high of 4.7%, driven by a broad-based recovery in sectors such as cement, refinery products, steel and coal.
The March edition of the Index of Eight Core Industries also provides a full year (April-March) performance review, which shows that the core industries maintained their growth rate of 4.3% in 2018-19, the same as in 2018.

NSE Fined in Co-location Case

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has barred the National Stock Exchange (NSE), which has the largest market share in equity segment and almost a monopoly in equity derivatives, from accessing the securities market for six months.
The capital markets regulator has further ordered the exchange to disgorge around Rs. 1,000 crore — that is, Rs. 624.89 crore plus 12% interest from April 1, 2014 — for its alleged failure to exercise proper due diligence while offering co-location facility thereby affecting market fairness and integrity.

NSEL-FTIL Merger Declared Violation of Companies Act

The Supreme Court declared the government's amalgamation of the over Rs. 5,600 crore scam-hit National Spot Exchange Ltd. (NSEL) with Financial Technologies India Ltd. (FTIL), now known as 63 Moons Technologies Ltd. as a violation of both the Constitution and the Companies Act.
A Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Vineet Saran held that the Centre's amalgamation order of February 12, 2016 was ultra vires Section 396 of the Companies Act and contrary to Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution.
Section 396 of the Companies Act, 1956, deals with compulsory amalgamation of companies by a Central Government order when it becomes essential in the public interest.

I-T Departmen and GSTN to Sign MoU

The Income Tax Department and the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) are all set to sign an MoU that will allow the two to match their data regarding company financials so as to pin down any anomalies.
The department order provides for the Principal Director General or Director General of Income Tax (Systems) to sign an MoU with the GSTN allowing them to send information on assessees to the nodal officer in the GSTN.
The order, dated April 30, states that the GSTN can ask for and be provided data relating to an assessee's status of filing income tax returns, turnover, gross total income, financial ratios, and any other data with the I-T Department to be decided at a later date.
The order also provides for the automatic exchange of such data, and not just based on requests, the modalities of which will be decided.
The MoU will also include the rules pertaining to the modalities of the exchange, the confidentiality of the data, and the weeding out after usage.

Probe against Alleged Dumping of Alloy Steel Rod

According to the American department of commerce, the U.S. has initiated a probe into alleged dumping of a particular variety of steel rod from four countries including India.
The department said that it was also probing whether producers of carbon and alloy steel threaded rods in India and China were receiving unfair subsidies from their respective governments.

Amazon Eyes $5 bn in Exports from India

E-commerce giant Amazon's Global Selling programme has achieved a significant milestone of $1 billion in cumulative e-com exports sales from India in the last three years.
The programme launched in May 2015 with a few hundred Indian sellers on board, now has more than 50,000 exporters selling over 140 million products to Amazon's customers across the globe.
According to Amazon India senior VP and country head Amit Agarwal, over the next five years, the exports initiative had the potential to fuel the growth of lakhs of Indian manufacturers, exporters and small enterprises and that Amazon was confident of clocking exports sales of $5 billion by 2023.

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