General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - June 2020

Jun 2020

Oct 13, 2020

Pact with Maldives for Mega Connectivity Project

India signed a $400 million (over Rs. 3,000 crore) loan pact with the Maldives for a mega connectivity project that will dwarf the Maldives-China Friendship Bridge. The line of credit was signed by Exim Bank's Nirmit Ved and the Maldives Finance Minister, Ibrahim Ameer.
India had completed the Supreme Court building in Mauritius, another Indian Ocean island-nation with which it has stepped up diplomatic ties.
The Maldives has received 5.5 tonnes of essential medicines from India which also helped in evacuation of Maldivians from Wuhan.
India has gone the extra mile to help the Maldives financially through a transparent mechanism. The RBI raised Treasury Bonds which were sold to the State Bank of India (SBI), Male, for handover to the Maldives Government.

Tamil Nadu Inks 14 MoUs Worth Rs. 10,055 crore

The Tamil Nadu government signed 14 Memorandum of Understanding envisaging new investments worth Rs. 10,055 crore in nine districts that would create 7,000 jobs in sectors, including renewable energy and data centre.
Among the 14 MoUs, the major investment was from JSW Renewable Energy Ltd, which is expected to invest Rs. 6,300 crore, to set up renewable energy plants in five districts — Thoothukudi, Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, Ramanathapuram and Tirupur. The investment would likely bring employment to 2,420 persons in all these districts.
From April to September this year, 42 MoUs worth Rs. 31,46 crore were signed to employ more than 60,000 persons in the State. The State government had earlier appointed a high-powered committee under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam to attract investments during COVID-19 lockdown.

Upstox India's Second Largest Stock Broker after Zerodha

Discount brokers are strengthening their hold on India's highly competitive stock broking industry, with another such firm surpassing all the traditional rivals amid the coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions.
According to data compiled by National Stock Exchange of India Ltd, Tiger Global Management-backed RKSV Securities India Pvt. became the second-biggest broker in the country after nearly doubling the number of its customers to 1.2 million in the six months through September.
Top online broker Zerodha Broking Ltd. also grew the number of clients by 75% to 2.5 million. In comparison, traditional brokers such as ICICI Securities Ltd. and HDFC Securities Ltd. saw meager additions.

Oct 12, 2020

Cello Group Re-enters Stationery Business

After selling its stationery business to France's BIC five years ago, the Cello Group is re-entering the category and plans to launch products in the domestic market.
In December 2015, stationery major BIC Group acquired Cello Pens, the largest Indian manufacturer of writing instruments, for Rs. 540 crore.
Gaurav P. Rathod, Managing Director, Cello Group said that we have just started stationery business with a different brand name (Unomax).
The company has different strategy for its new stationery business to differentiate it from Cello Pens.

RBI to Move to Next Generation Treasury Application

In a bid to improve its functioning, the Reserve Bank has decided to move to the Next Generation Treasury Application (NGTA) for managing the country's foreign exchange and gold reserves.
According to the RBI, the NGTA will be a web-based application providing scalability, manoeuvrability and flexibility to introduce new products and securities, besides supporting multi-currency transactions and settlements.
The NGTA, for which the RBI has invited bids from eligible vendors, will be supporting various transactions in asset classes like Fixed Income (FI), Forex (FX), Money Market (MM) and Gold.
As per RBI, the objectives of the proposed system included, dealing in various asset classes (like Fixed Income Securities, Forex, Money Market, Gold); portfolio management; work flow management; reserve management; integration with various third party and in-house systems; and dashboards, reports, widgets.

Oct 11, 2020

IBM to Break-up 109-year Old Company to Focus on Cloud Growth

International Business Machines Corp is splitting itself into two public companies, capping a years-long effort by the world's first big computing firm to diversify away from its legacy businesses to focus on high-margin cloud computing.
IBM will list its IT infrastructure services unit, which provides technical support for 4,600 clients in 115 countries and has a backlog of $60 billion, as a separate company with a new name by the end of 2021.
The new company will have 90,000 employees and its leadership structure will be decided in a few months.
IBM, which currently has more than 352,000 workers, expects to record nearly $5 billion in expenses related to the separation and operational changes.

India Receives Second Set of Swiss Bank Account Details

India received second set of Swiss bank details under the "Automatic Exchange Pact" signed with Switzerland. The pact was a key milestone of GoI in its fight back against black money.
India is one among 86 countries with which Switzerland exchanges information on financial accounts. In 2019, India received its first set of details from Switzerland. The Switzerland Federal Tax Administration has provided details of 3.1 million financial accounts.
According to the agreement, the Swiss Bank shares details such as account information, identification, financial information such as name, address, tax identification number and country of residence.
The information obtained from the Swiss Bank will help tax authorities to verify if Indian taxpayers have declared their financial accounts correctly.

LVB Gets Non-binding Merger Offer from Clix Capital Group

Capital-starved private sector lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank, whose chief executive was voted out by shareholders, received a non-binding offer from Aion-backed non-banking finance firm Clix Group for a merger.
The old-generation Chennai-based private sector bank, which has been on the lookout for an investor and capital for long, was jolted on September 25 when its shareholders voted out seven directors of its Board, including CEO S Sundar and promoters K. R. Pradeep and N. Saiprasad.
Following this, the RBI appointed a three-member team to run the bank under Meeta Makhan as chairperson and Shakti Sinha and Satish Kumar Kalra as members.

Oct 10, 2020

RTGS to be Available 24X7 from December 2020

In a business-friendly move, the Reserve Bank of India has said Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), used for large value transactions, will be made available round-the-clock from December 2020.
In December 2019, the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system was made available on a 24x7x365 basis.
Currently, RTGS is available for customers from 7.00 am to 6.00 pm on all working days of a week, except the second and fourth Saturdays of every month.

GST E-invoicing for all B2B Transactions

As per finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the government will roll out the electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) system for all business-to-business (B2B) transactions under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime from April 1, 2021 that will replace physical invoices.
The government introduced the e-invoicing system on October 1, 2020 for businesses with an annual turnover over Rs. 500 crore.
By January 1, 2021, it will be available to taxpayers with an annual turnover over Rs. 100 crore.
It is a great step forward as e-invoicing has many advantages both for the business and the tax administration.
Buyers and sellers will be able to have realtime information of the invoices. It replaces the physical invoice and will soon replace the existing e-way bill system and taxpayers will not have to generate separate e-way bills.

RBI Monetary Policy Committee Meet

The newly formed Monetary Policy Committee held its meeting between October 7, 2020 and October 9, 2020. The Government of India recently appointed its members. They were economists Jayant R. Varma, Shashank Bhide and Ashima Goyal. Also, the Government of India appointed Rajeshwar Rao as the Deputy Governor of RBI.
Highlights
The repo was kept unchanged at 4%.
Reverse Repo Rate is to be maintained at 3.5% as before.
OMO of Rs. 20,000 crores is to be conducted.
The Ways and Means Advance Limits of the Centre is kept at Rs. 1.25 lakh crore.
The bank announced on-tap TLTRO for Rs 1 trillion at 4% till March 2021.

GSFC Launches Indigenous Varieties of Calcium Nitrate and Boronated Calcium Nitrates

Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals India Limited (GSFC) launched the indigenous variety of boronated calcium nitrate and Calcium nitrate. The Chemicals are being manufactured in the country for the first time. All these years these Chemicals were imported from other countries
The calcium nitrate is used as water soluble fertilizer. It is also used to increase the strength of cement concrete and also in wastewater treatment.
Boron has a crucial role in plant functions. It includes cell wall stability, formation and maintenance of structural and functional integrity. Boron is also essential for movement of sugar in growing parts of the plant. Also, Boron helps in seed set and pollination.

Oct 09, 2020

AMHUB: India's First Advanced Manufacturing Hub

The World Economic Forum and Guidance will jointly establish AMHUB in the state of Tamil Nadu.
AMHUB is Advanced Manufacturing hub and is first of its kind in the country.
Guidance is the nodal investment promotion agency of the state of Tamil Nadu.
AMHUB will help the state in the sectors of solar energy, electronics, electric mobility and textiles.
It will help boost production sector of Tamil Nadu by identifying regional opportunities brought by Fourth Industrial Revolution.

RBI Bans FDI Establishment from Mauritius

The Reserve Bank of India said that companies cannot set up Foreign Direct Investment from Mauritius. The apex bank has also banned FDI from jurisdictions similar to Mauritius as they do not comply with the norms set by Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Mauritius was recently listed in grey list of the FATF.
The Reserve Bank banned the FDI from Mauritius due to the following reasons:
To prevent round tripping.
To curb Chinese investments.

EasyJet to Make First Annual Loss in its History

EasyJet has warned that it faced losses of more than £800m this year and that it expects to fly at just 25% of normal capacity into next year.
The annual loss will be the first in EasyJet's 25-year history.
Although the airline had taken tough action to cut costs, the warning underlines the continuing challenges for the industry.
EasyJet has signalled to the government that it may need more financial support.
However, Chief Executive Johan Lundgren said that aviation continues to face the most severe threat in its history and the UK government urgently needs to step up with a bespoke package of measures to ensure airlines are able to support economic recovery when it comes.

NABARD Inks MoUs with SBI to Extend Credit Support for Various Projects

In Gujarat, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development -NABARD inked three Memorandum of Understanding with State Bank of India to extend credit support for various projects.
The signing of MoUs took place between D. K. Mishra, Chief General Manager of NABARD in Gujarat and Dukhbandhu Rath, Chief General Manager, SBI Ahmedabad Circle in the presence of NABARD Chairman G. R. Chintala.
The MoUs were signed for financing joint liability groups and Self-Help Groups-support credit inflows to Farmer Producers' Organizations and economic support for watershed development projects.
These will help in providing credit support to the different sections of the society including the priority sector.

Tim Hortons' UK Expansion to Create 2,000 Jobs

Canadian fast food chain Tim Hortons is planning a major expansion in the UK, hoping to capitalise on increased demand for drive-through dining.
The move comes despite the recent collapse in sales at the chain due to the coronavirus crisis.
The firm hopes to open an outlet in every major city and town over the next two years.
The growth could create around 2,000 new jobs, it said.
Tim Hortons, which is known for its coffee and donuts, opened its first UK location in 2017 and now has 23 locations.
The brand is owned by fast food giant Restaurant Brands International (RBI), which also owns Burger King and Popeye's Chicken. Together, the company has more than 27,000 restaurants globally, which it operates through a franchise model.

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