General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - October 2020

Oct 2020

Dec 20, 2020

Reliance Industries and BP Star Gas Production at Ultra-deep- water Field in KG D6

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP announced the start of production from the R Cluster, an ultra-deep-water gas field in block KG D6 off the east coast of India. This is the first in the trio of projects that account for 25 per cent of domestic production of these companies.
The three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6 are R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ. Together they are expected to meet 15 per cent of India's gas demand by 2023.
As per reports, these projects will use an existing hub infrastructure in KG D6 block. RIL is the operator of KG D6 with a 66.67% participating interest and BP holds a 33.33% participating interest.
The field is located about 60km from the existing KG D6 Control & Riser Platform (CRP) off the Kakinada coast. It comprises a subsea production system tied back to CRP via a subsea pipeline.

WB Comes Out with Corrected Doing Business Rankings

Coming out with corrected Doing Business rankings following review of data irregularities, the World Bank has said that China's ranking would have been lower by seven notches in the index for 2018.
Besides China's, the World Bank has corrected the Doing Business rankings of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
In August, the World Bank had decided to pause the publication of its Doing Business report following a number of irregularities regarding changes to data in previous reports.
The review details the irregularities and required corrections affecting the data for four countries—China, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan.

RBI Extends Restrictions on Scam-hit PMC Bank

The Reserve bank of India further extended restrictions of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC Bank) till March 31 and said that the bank needs more time to reconstruct itself. Issuing a statement, the RBI said that four proposals have been received for the Expression of Interest (EoI) sought by the fraud-hit multi-state urban cooperative bank from potential investors for investment or equity participation in the bank for its reconstruction.
The proposals will be examined by the bank with regard to their viability and feasibility taking into account the best interest of the depositors and to undertake this process, the bank would need some more time.

Dec 19, 2020

Gucci Joins Alibaba's Luxury E-commerce Site to woo Chinese Consumers

Fashion label Gucci will open two flagship stores on Alibaba's online luxury shopping platform, underscoring the importance of the Chinese market for high-end brands seeking to reverse a revenue slide due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Gucci, the profit engine of French group Kering, is one of the most prized names to join the Tmall Luxury Pavilion platform, which was created in 2017 and now boasts more than 200 brands ranging from apparel to high-end cars.
Gucci's first flagship store, selling fashion and leather goods collections, will open on December 21. A second store focused on beauty products will be launched in February 2021 and will be operated by Gucci's license partner Coty.
Gucci has its own Chinese website, gucci.cn, and is present on all major Chinese social media platforms, including Weibo and WeChat.

IKEA Opens Store in Navi Mumbai

One of the world's largest furniture retailer Sweden-based Ikea opened its second store in Navi Mumbai. The first store in India was opened in 2018 in Hyderabad.
It houses a 1,000-seater restaurant. However, as of now, only 2,500 people will be allowed to visit the store daily adhering to the Covid-19 guidelines.
In India, Ikea has online stores in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.
As per reports, the Navi Mumbai store will provide more than 6,000 jobs of which 50 per cent will be women.
Ikea's next project will come up in Bengaluru, which is under construction. Then, it will open multiple format stores in Delhi-NCR — including a combination of a shopping centre, small stores and big centres.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Launches Guaranteed Pension Plan

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance launched a new plan that guarantees life-long income after you retire. The plan named, ICICI Pru Guaranteed Pension Plan is a non-linked non-participating individual annuity product that provides customers with the flexibility to choose between Immediate and Deferred Annuity.
The Immediate Annuity option enables customers to start receiving regular income immediately by paying a one-time premium. Meanwhile, the Deferred Annuity option gives customers the flexibility to start receiving the income much later, for example, when he or she is closer to retirement. Also, customers have the option to defer the start of the income for a period of 10 years.

Route Mobile Names Milind Pathak as Chief Business Officer

Route Mobile, a cloud communication service provider to enterprises, over-the-top players and mobile network operators, named Milind Pathak as its Chief Business Officer. Pathak will drive new product development, and support Route Mobile's next phase of growth as the company continues to expand globally, drive product innovation and enter new markets.
A senior leader with over 20 years of experience in blue-chip organisations across domestic and global markets, Pathak has held several key decision-making portfolios, especially in sales and marketing, new product development, involving both startups and growth organisations.

Dec 18, 2020

Government to Press Ahead with PSU Stake Sale

According to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the government will press ahead with the sale of public sector companies that have been approved by the Cabinet.
Highlighting that the FDI flow into India is much higher compared to other emerging economies, Sitharaman said that India's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, ability to do reforms and a stable government help attract long-term foreign funds into Indian businesses.
The government has set an ambitious Rs. 2.01 lakh crore disinvestment target in the current fiscal. However, COVID-19 pandemic has derailed the stake sale plans and so far over Rs. 11,006 crore has been mopped up from minority stake sale in various CPSEs.
The Cabinet has approved strategic sale, along with transfer of management control, in over 25 public sector companies, including Air India , BPCL, Pawan Hans, Scooters India, Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), Shipping Corporation, Cement Corporation and some steel plants of SAIL.

BPCL Board Approves Buying out Oman Oil's Stake in Bina Refinery

Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) said that its board has approved buying out Oman Oil Company's stake in the Bina refinery project in Madhya Pradesh on mutually agreeable terms.
The BPCL board at its meeting also approved merging Bharat Gas Resources Ltd (BGRL) with itself.
BPCL holds 63.68 per cent stake in Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL), which built and operates a 7.8 million tonne oil refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.

Tata Motors to Buy Partner's Share in Tata Marcopolo Motors

Tata Motors will buy its partner's stake in bus joint venture (JV) firm Tata Marcopolo Motors for around Rs. 100 crore. "After a successful venture in India, and as a consequence of its refreshed business strategy, Marcopolo S.A. has decided to exit from the JV and offered to sell its 49 per cent shareholding in the JV to the company.
Tata Marcopolo Motors is a 51:49 JV formed in 2006, which has manufacturing facilities in Dharwad and Lucknow.

RBI to Conduct 3rd OMO Purchase of SDLs Next Week

The Reserve Bank of India will conduct the third auction of state developments loans (SDLs) aggregating Rs. 10,000 crore under the Open Market Operations (OMO) next week..
The Reserve Bank has conducted two OMOs in SDLs covering all states/UTs for a cumulative amount of Rs. 20,000 crore. The first-ever auction under OMOs in SDLs was conducted in October and the second in November.
The central bank will purchase the SDLs through a multi-security auction using the multiple price method. There is no security wise notified amount.

IndusInd Bank Launches its First Metal Credit Card 'PIONEER Heritage'

IndusInd Bank in partnership with Mastercard announced the launch of its first metal credit card - 'PIONEER Heritage' for the bank's ultra-high net worth segment of customers. Equipped with best-in-class features & privileges across an array of categories like travel, wellness, lifestyle among others, the all-new credit card has been specially curated to match the requirements of affluent Indian professionals and entrepreneurs.
It is also part of the 'World Elite' platform by Mastercard comprising privileges that complement the lifestyle of the discerning few. The 'World Elite' platform is Mastercard's signature global program that offers the choicest benefits to HNI cardholders across their passion points.

EU Approve Google's Fitbit Takeover

Google's takeover of Fitbit has been approved by the European Commission, following a four-month investigation.
The search giant bought the fitness tracking company for $2.1bn (£1.5bn) in November 2019 - but the EU warned the acquisition could harm competition.
Google has made a series of pledges to address investigators' concerns.
Commission executive vice-president Margarethe Vestager said that the deal would keep the wearables market "open and competitive".
The European Commission had expressed concerns Google would:
use the tranche of Fitbit data for targeted advertising, making it harder for rivals to compete
exclude third parties from the Fitbit platform
disadvantage rival wearable device-makers by degrading their compatibility with Google's Android smartphone operating system
Google has promised not to use health, fitness and location data from Fitbit devices for advertising, for users in the European Economic Area, to store Fitbit data in a "silo", kept separate from any other data used for advertising, to maintain third-party access to the Fitbit platform, not to degrade the user experience of third-party smartwatches when paired with an Android phone.
The commitments must be kept for 10 years.

Dec 17, 2020

NPCI Strengthens RuPay Contactless with New Features

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) introduced RuPay Contactless (Offline) feature, which also provides reloadable wallets within RuPay Card, for day to day transit payments. It has also introduced RuPay Contactless (Offline) feature for retail payments on pilot basis. These additional features will augment the overall transaction experience for the RuPay cardholders and revolutionize the overall card payment ecosystem.
This RuPay card comes with a reloadable wallet feature where customers can store money to ensure quick and seamless transactions without any irregularities even if they witness poor connectivity at the POS machines.

Cabinet Approves Next Round of Spectrum Auction

The Union Cabinet approved the next round of the telecom spectrum auction, I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar informed in a press briefing adding that the cabinet has approved relief for sugarcane farmers and improvement in electricity infrastructure in the north-eastern states.
Spectrum in 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz frequency bands would be auctioned for a validity period of 20 years. A total of 2251.25 MHz is being offered with total valuation of Rs. 3,92,332.70 crore (at reserve price).
Apart from the decision on spectrum auctions, the Cabinet also approved a subsidy of Rs 3,500 crore to sugar mills for the export of 60 lakh tonnes of sugar during the ongoing marketing year 2020-21 (October-September) in a bid to help them clear outstanding dues to sugarcane farmers.

US Adds India, Thailand and Taiwan to Currency Manipulation Watch List

The US added India along with Taiwan and Thailand to the monitoring list of currency manipulating countries that includes major trading partners like China and six others.
It also branded Vietnam and Switzerland as currency manipulators.
Other countries on the monitoring list are Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore and Malaysia. Ireland has been removed from the Monitoring List, the US Department of Treasury said in its report 'Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States'.
Over the four quarters through June 2020, four major US trading partners, Vietnam, Switzerland, India and Singapore, intervened in the foreign exchange market in a sustained, asymmetric manner.

UK and Singapore Funds Invest in Low-cost Housing Co Janaadhar

UK-based impact investor Reall and Singapore-based hedge fund Tree Line Asia Master Fund have invested Rs. 77 crore in a combination of equity and external commercial borrowing (ECB) in Bengaluru-based affordable housing developer Janaadhar India, showing confidence in the sector's ability to deliver sustainable financial returns in the long run.
Tree Line has invested Rs. 22.5 crore in equity raising its stake in the company with Reall putting Rs. 49.5 crore in debt. Other existing investors have put in another Rs. 5 crore between them.
The developer would use the fund to build low-cost dwelling units in Ahmedabad. The company kept the shareholding details under wraps.
This is Reall's first financing to an Indian developer in the affordable housing sector. Reall is backed by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Swedish International Development Agency.

Venture Catalysts Group to Invest Rs. 1,000 cr in Start-Ups in 2021

Indian early-stage start-up investor Venture Catalysts Group (VCats) is planning to invest around Rs. 1,000 crore in start-ups in 2021.
In 2020, the fund invested around Rs. 700 crore, up by 40 per cent compared to 2019, through syndication in several idea-stage and early stage businesses across sectors. Some co-investors, who were part of the syndication include Sequoia Surge, Nexus Venture Partners, Facebook FB Start, Lightspeed Venture Partners among others.
The Mumbai-based investment firm VCats runs an incubator and a SEBI registered accelerator fund 9Unicorns. It made the highest number of deals at 102 this year, compared to 63 a year ago.

UK's Liberty Group Buys Bankrupt SBQ Steels

The UK based Liberty group has acquired the bankrupt 0.25 million tonne SBQ Steels, cumulating a three-year process in which the company was put into liquidation after initial efforts to sell it failed.
Liberty paid Rs 262.45 crore plus interest of Rs. 8 crore to take the Nellore based steel company, its second acquisition through the bankruptcy process after acquiring the bankrupt Adhunik Metaliks and its associate Zion Steel in February 2020 under the insolvency law in a Rs. 425 crore cash deal.
Liberty outbid Switzerland based IMR Metallurgical Resources to emerge the highest bidder during liquidation with a Rs. 262 crore offer in August. However, the company could not pay in three months stipulated.

Dec 16, 2020

Russia Approves Sinopec's Participation in huge Petrochemical Project

The Russian government approved participation of China's Sinopec company in a large-scale petrochemical project, in line with Moscow's plans to forge closer ties with Beijing.
Russia's privately held Sibur petrochemical company wants to build one of the world's largest polymer-producing plants in the country's far east, targeting the Chinese and broader Asian markets.
The Amur Gas Chemical Complex, with investments of up to $11 billion, is set to start producing 2.3 million tonnes of polyethylene and 400,000 tonnes of polypropylene per year beginning in 2024-2025. Sinopec is set to take a 40% stake in the complex.
Chinese companies have been actively participating in Russia's projects, including in production of oil and gas.

RBI Imposes Penalty on an Urban Co-operative Bank in Kerala

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs. 50.00 lakh on The Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd. No. 1758, Perinthalmanna for non-compliance with directions issued on Income Recognition and Asset Classification (IRAC) norms and on Management of Advances-UCBs.
The central bank said that statutory inspection of the bank with reference to its financial position as on March 31, 2019, conducted by RBI, revealed that the bank had not complied with the directions.

India Post Payments Bank Launches its Digital Payments' Services 'DakPay'

Department of Posts (DoP) and India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) unveiled a new digital payment app called 'DaKPay' at a virtual event. The app is part of the department's ongoing efforts to provide digital financial inclusion to all corners of the country.
DakPay is not just a digital payment app but a suite of digital financial and assisted banking services provided by India Post and India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) through the postal network across the nation to cater to the financial needs of various sections of the society — be it sending money to the loved ones (Domestic Money Transfers — DMT), Scan QR code and make payment for services/merchants digitally (Virtual debit card and with UPI), enabling cashless ecosystem through biometrics, providing interoperable banking services to the customers of any bank (AePS) and Utility Bill Payment services.

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