Indian Economy News & Discussion - Aug 26 2015

[Gus]

forget about real estate price inflation in and around cities for houses and industries. At least there is a demand component there. There's no reason why rural land area price should jump from around 5L per acre in 2006/2007 to 25L and 40L even per acre now. Especially when farming is failing and young people from farms flock to cities and the remaining farmers commit suicide. This was mostly all BM being stored.

[krisna]

<snip>


There is no doubt NaMo has enormous political capital. He is using this political capital to tackle some of most difficult decisions. Demonetization, corruption, opening up for foreign investment, The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, Bank NPAs are some of the example. Laws related to land acquisition and labor reform are yet to be taken up but these are the biggest hurdles. On other issues like hygiene, skill development, etc. NaMo hasn't achieved a lot of success but at least there is a well meaning effort. Overall, Rajan should stick to writing papers and teaching classes because he has no clue of how to deal with a messy democracy.

Lot has been achieved --esp sanitation issues. This is one issue which has the maximum success amongst all social schemes in India. This is not spectacular like 100% succees or good for TRPs in sickualr media.

over ~30% of villages covered in 3 years related to sanitation issues. This is not just build sanitation and forget about it as done by previous govts and celebrate it. This govt is much stricter. There are officials who visit 30 , 90 abd days and follow it up with 6 months to certify it. There are process for it.
The ministry wants to make sure it is sustained and not lost the gains made.
The villages have got used to old habits unfortunately. This cycle has to be broken hence the extraordinary efforts by this ministry.
NaMo is personally seeing this project over the concerned ministry.

Not much in the media unfortunately to list links.

Know this just as is.


The below is from IMF report released in feb this year- pafe 36-37. there are graphs also in the pdf format.
http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/I ... tive-44670

In this regard, the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) mission,5 launched in October 2014 alongside improving sanitation infrastructure, also focuses on fostering large-scale social and behavior change to increase sanitation demand in both rural and urban India. Since the launch of the program, close to 31 million toilets have been built in rural areas, resulting in a 17.5 percent increase in the number of Indian rural households with a latrine facility. The relatively large fiscal cost of the Swachh Bharat program (estimated at about ¼ of one percent of GDP over the next 5 years) have been supported through introduction of a 0.5 percent special cess on services.6 That said, given the diverse range of cultures, languages and religion within India means that the role of the central government can be rather limited. Hence, to enable greater impact, policy interventions should continue to be tailored to community specific factors, across particular states and districts.

Honestly this should have been accomplished by first 20 odd years since 1947.
shame we are now speaking about it..

[Manish_Sharma]

Watched Raghuram Rajan's interviews on multiple TV channels yesterday....

He is totally under thumb of cia. He never critical of sonia-christiandambaram-mms. There is an interview of him where Raghuram is asked about his father and family, the guy becomes so uncomfortable almost trembling. The way Anti national channels ndtv etc. Worshipped him everyday, shows from where the support is coming from.

Rajan has never been critical of LAB or right to education bills concoted by Naxalite NAC.

Second person you praised MMS was the one who inherited healthy nation from Vajpayee govt and destroyed it, opposing every policy not only of NDA but even Narsimha Rao govt too.

Le Monde magazine of France had predicted that no matter who forms the next govt. IMF has already decided that their man manmohan singh will be the next finance minister. Exactly that happened.

Raghuram is also there man, I mean everyday the jerk was insinuating that Modi is Hitler. Giving lecture to govt on moral issues. I think his family and himself have lots of kukarms in past that west holds over him. He will sell Bharatvarsh the moment he becomes FM.

----------
Added later :

Also I think raghuram is a coward and ingrateful person. He kept throwing barbs at Modi and his govt. even to the extent of drawing parellels between hitler and Modi. But Modi ji gracefully kept quiet.

But when Subramanian Swamy started exposing Raghuram, he went crying to Jaitley who then publicly issued statement protecting him.

[Hari Seldon]

There should be a way to measure and quantify health or sanitation or environmental outcomes in rupee terms so that the same can be communicated better to the masses, valued and appreciated better by the educateds etc.

For instance, how much is saved from a state's health budget, from hospital resources and citizens' pockets when a state becomes ODF (open defecation free)? Etc.

Else, opposition people will just pick up one or two of the things that do get measured and jump up and down painting Modi sarkar's econ policies as a complete failure.

[shaun]

India’s incremental capital output ratio (ICOR) is 4.0 in the first three quarters of FY16-17 from 6.3 in FY12-13. We are surely and steadily coming out of the mess.

Where things were ,

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/how-u ... 57697.html
http://www.firstpost.com/business/upa-d ... 63069.html

Would have been great , if we could compile data on retail price of daily food items starting from 1999. CPI & WPI index is okay but actual retail price of some popular brand of food items will have more optics.

[hanumadu]

Guess what ,it IS a close to 2% hit and a loss of 200,000 Crore in output, massive job losses in unorganised sector, a disaster which can't have any benefits because the cost of followup to see it through to realise anything would be simply too much politically (measures like disallowing withdrawals of over Rs 50,000 in a given year, banning cash payments for whole bunch of transactions , compulsory escrow and other tracking for land and real estate deals etc) and even that would be nebulous and not visible and wholly intangible..

But no, between DeMo and privatisation and bank cleanup , the latter was FAR easier. The Rs 2L crore, if spent on bank clean up would have got the economy moving again.

How does 2% of GDP hit for one quarter equal 2 lakh crore loss to the govt revenues. GDP Is not the same as govt revenues. But DeMo got much more than 2 lakh crores to the banks. If injecting money into the bank would have kick started the economy, it should have after DeMo. But the problem is corporates do not want to take on new loans. They have been trying to deleverage and liquidate what ever they can. There is over capacity in key segments like steel and thermal power. Infrastructure companies do not want to take up projects under PPP. So the govt has taken upon itself to spend on infrastructure.

I think 50000/year limit on withdrawal is only for JandDhan accounts.

[hanumadu]

Fundamentally PRIVATE INVESTMENT IS DEAD it has been comatose since the UPAII started, and now it is just plain dead as nails . We need some huge fundamental things like accelerated depreciation , investment subsidy (think on the lines of cash for clunkers the EU did) and tax holidays to get investment going again (suspend the idiotic MAT business that got introduced just to fix guys who had large depreciation due to big investments for 10 years) . For that , the Govt needs to GET out of business , cut it's spending and the pressure it puts on borrowing. But no, the Govt thinks, it can jump start investment in a classic "Keynesian" manner by borrowing and spending.
.

Clash for Clunkers was in the US. But that would mean printing money and bailing out the industry at some marginal benefit to consumers. If this is not Keynesian economics, what is? Were you not criticizing the US for printing money and bailing out their banks and industry, increasing debt and fueling inflation? And you want India to do the same? Would Raghuram Rajan have approved your prescription? If anything he is even more of an inflation hawk. He would readily sacrifice growth than start something like cash for clunkers or TARP or bad bank.

When the world economy tanked many economists advocated a complete reset than pump priming the economy. A period of extreme hard ship for a decade because that was the right thing to do. You probably were in agreement with them.

India is doing exactly that. Taking the hit now and in the process every body will learn not to repeat this nonsense. The banks will learn not to lend to the politician's favorite industrialist, the industrialist will learn not to use his political influence to get undeserved loans and hopefully the politicians will learn not to influence the banks to loan money to the biggest bribe giver.

Funny thing is the quack Gurumurthy is actually advocating what you seem to be. He wants the govt to bail out the industries, at least those who are struggling because of govt policies.

Politically, it would have been so much more convenient to do what you are advocating. Print the money, run up the deficit, use up the existing capacity. Every body seems to be saying the same mantra from Arun Shourie to you. America printed 10 trillion dollars, China printed 6 or 7 trillion dollars, Japan printed 2 trillion dollars and EU probably 3 or 4 trillion dollars. India needs only 150 billion dollars to cover its NPAs.

[Prem]

https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_ViewW ... x?id=41610
Reserves up by 4+ billion and now 398 Billion. On track to Half Trillion by end of next year.

[nash]

Narendra Modi's MUDRA Yojana generates 5.5 crore jobs, says report

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

If report is correct then Modi is not far from the promise of 100 million jobs and certainly egg in the face moment to those who say about jobless growth.

[nash]

Narendra Modi's MUDRA Yojana generates 5.5 crore jobs, says report

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

If report is correct then Modi is not far from the promise of 100 million jobs and certainly egg in the face moment to those who say about jobless growth.

http://www.skoch.in/images/49th/MUDRA_E ... er2017.pdf

Report is by skotch Group

ABOUT SKOCH GROUP
SKOCH
Group is a Gurgaon based
think tank dealing with socio-economic issues with a focus on inclusive growth since 1997. The Group companies include a consulting wing, a media wing and a charitable foundation. SKOCH Group is able to bring an Indian felt-needs context to strategies and engages with Fortune-500 companies,
State Owned Enterprises, Government to SMEs and Community-Based Organisations with equal ease. The repertoire of services includes field
interventions, consultancy, research reports, impact assessments, policy briefs, books, journals, workshops and conferences.
SKOCH Group has instituted India’s highest independent civilian honours in the field of governance, finance, technology, economics and social sector.

[KrishnaK]

More Room For Rate Cuts, Says Arvind Subramanian Arvind Subramanian agrees the economy's slowing down.

[Austin]

ET NOW Exclusive | Rajan Is Back

[darshhan]

ET NOW Exclusive | Rajan Is Back

Is he back in India? Who gave him the visa?

[Karthik S]

He is still Indian Citizen right? He only has US GC.

[krisna]

Watched Raghuram Rajan's interviews on multiple TV channels yesterday. We are blessed to have people like him around and I fervently wish that he becomes the Finance Minister soon.(Heavens no. will screw up India with non Indian baked theories irrelebvant to India) That will fix a whole host of structural and other issues in the economy and put us on a sustained 10% growth trajectory , with low inflation for the next 20 years thereafter. But no. We would rather kick him out and hand economic policy to some absolute whack jobs like S. Gurumurthy and some random yin- yangs who live in some alternate reality and who are simply so full of themselves even when they are criminally stupid , dumb and plain wrong to even know any better ,when someone else tells them so
(useless emotional rants. )
The Modi govt economic policy is run by a much of whack jobs, especially the DeMo. The entire Demo exercise was a fool's errand and Raghuram and the RBI warned the govt of the serious costs. Manmohan Singh warned of a 2% hit to the GDP (one a big mouth and the other quiet mouse did nothing despite knowing over 86% of the currencies were of high denomination for few years screwing Indian economy, average Indian uses more of 10,20 50 and 100rs as shown by studies. did diddly squat on checking it.) and (after the exercise, coz obviously he couldnt have know of it before). Guess what ,it IS a close to 2% hit and a loss of 200,000 Crore in output, massive job losses in unorganised sector a disaster which can't have any benefits because the cost of followup to see it through to realise anything would be simply too much politically (measures like disallowing withdrawals of over Rs 50,000 in a given year, banning cash payments for whole bunch of transactions , compulsory escrow and other tracking for land and real estate deals etc) and even that would be nebulous and not visible and wholly intangible.(just assumptions as is the problem with these loud mouths and quiet mouse. no full analysis other than eyeballs in sickular media)

But no, between DeMo and privatisation and bank cleanup , the latter was FAR easier. The Rs 2L crore, if spent on bank clean up would have got the economy moving again. (this is not giving big talks stupidly but sitting on one's butt and work for the country which was not done by these big names in sickular media.One must be a bad economist and emotional follower of sickular stuff when one fails to hear talks of the GOI persons like sanjeeb sanyal which has been mentioned here with posts)

Fundamentally PRIVATE INVESTMENT IS DEAD it has been comatose since the UPAII started, and now it is just plain dead as nails .(why is not answered but just rants with no analysis) We need some huge fundamental things like accelerated depreciation , investment subsidy (think on the lines of cash for clunkers the EU did) and tax holidays to get investment going again (suspend the idiotic MAT business that got introduced just to fix guys who had large depreciation due to big investments for 10 years) . For that , the Govt needs to GET out of business , cut it's spending and the pressure it puts on borrowing. But no, the Govt thinks, it can jump start investment in a classic "Keynesian" manner by borrowing and spending(thank Gawd we don't have sickualr economists ruilng india now but folks who are alive to the present day scenario. india is a large country not Delhi centric with media ruling the roost)

But pray WHAT is the the visible effects of the govt spending ? It is not showing up in the bottomline of companies. It is NOT showing up in anything tangible on the ground (for e.g., how many tons of goods have moved on the DFC , the much ballyhooed infra initiative ? something that can change the game fundamentally), how is it that we are a power surplus country (for God's sake, I can't believe it.. the cost of power is so high for the guys who pay that we can't even evacuate the full installed capacity). (rants rants and more rants unbelieveable for someone who does not understand a large country like India with lot of bad stuff of sicukar dispensation needs to be erased, and put in new measures. never easy, needs lot of guts, back breaking work, tweaking laws and rules etc etc , make babaus in differnet ministries pull together. If only these worthies even worked in a small leadership role would know the difference between working and
talking)
Lastly, I find Dr Rajan's explanation for the GDP bump that happened after UPA II to be very convincing . It is like this. When oil prices and commodity prices fell, what happened, is that our import bill fell, and with that , our net exports rose (coz the imports fell) ,which added roughly 1.5 to 2% of GDP over time. That effect is gone. Earlier, the global economy was comatose. But now major economies are firing (US, EU , even Japan). The exports in East Asia have recovered (Korea has done incredibly well, so has Japan and even China to a lesser extent), while our exports have simply not moved at ALL.( not fully done. part true on macroeconomic front withoit anything related to Indian local situation.

However, we are told that Nirmala Sitharaman has done an "incredible" job and promoted to Defence Minister . Frankly, I want to see the graph in exports under her watch and a graph of growth in world trade for the same period. Looks like we lost share in the % of global trade in the period.(useless rants not knowing India what it was before and what has to be done and what can happen if done correctly. what is the time lag and how things move.)

All in all, I think the Govt should be ALARMED and indeed put in the emergency huddle to do something. But no, all we hear are platitudes . ( GOI is rightly alarmed and doing its utmost to help India unlike the sickular b8star*ds screwing India. Even for GOI it is the slowest mover in the Govt set uop which hampers the recovery-- similar to critical pathway in any reaction etc in science. The slowest ones are the sickularised babus sitting on their butts. who sickularised and made them comfortbale will be difficult to digest for some folks)

If at the end of all this, if whackjobs like the SJM and the DeMo urging dudes are thoroughly discredited and turned to pasture (basically, the Marx with Cow types) that is the best thing that can happen. Guys like S. Gurumurthy and R. Vaidya and the rest of the SJM types should simply shut up.( (They have roamed India from J&K to TN and from GJ to Nagaland in various years, collected information on economic activity including the holistic scenario of their social, traditons customs etc and talk sense unlike foreign imported whackos who sit on their bottoms and whine a lot. I would anyday listen to Gurumurthy and R.Vaidyanathan than RR or MMS who know zilch about how an Indian works) For 50 years, the whack jobs of the Red Commies wrecked this country (the ISI/Plannign Commission/DSE/JNU types) ( the main problem ) and now the Saffron Commies (i.e. Marx + Cow) types want to do an encore ( useless ranst just to do some nonsense ==)

All in all a useless post with nonsense rhetoric.
not knowing fully but creating an aura of knowing.

**** have little knalidge of economics , but have read heard lived with some common Indians in various capacities in my short life time and seen the work environment. I have talked with various folks inlcuidng servants, sweepers, car drivers, hotel workers and many others including medium enterprises running into few lakhs to couple of crores of turn over. etc etc. I find Gurumurthy and R vaidyanathan talk more sense seeing this perspective. This shows their grounded realties in India unlike the buffons who became Pm of India and became RBI gov with foreign knawlidge. they were just rubberstamp or big whiners *****

[Atish]

Raghuram Rajan should not have written criticism of policy while the policy still is in motion really. An RBI Governor is a very very serious position, one of the most important Constitutional positions there is, almost as powerful as PM or Prez. A couple of years later would have been ok. Very disappointing, very irresponsible, very bad show.

[chandrasekaran]

Just yesterday or day before yesterday, TOI had reported about a TN neta(crook) depositing 249 crores in cash during demonetization!! Imagine 249 crores in cash!! I am no economist, but what did worthies like Rajan, who was "Chief Economic Advisor" to MMS, and MMS himself, did to curtail this mind boggling increase of high denomination currency circulation all over India ?

There was another report in "The Chindu" about how medical seats sale in Karnataka medical colleges have seen a steep fall in prices, not only because of NEET, but also because of the "cash" that was once freely available amongst certain sections of our society. Same with real estate prices. All sectors where huge amounts of unaccounted cash were traded have come to a grinding halt, compared to the era where these worthies were in power.

As I said I am no economist, but I have a very serious doubt if RBI (of course under the leadership of RR) had accurate data on the amount of high deno. currency in circulation ? RBI now claims that 99% of the currency has come back, but has said no counting machines were used to count these notes!! The how did they count ? Manually ? How many FICN managed to sneak in ?

[A_Gupta]

There was another report in "The Chindu" about how medical seats sale in Karnataka medical colleges have seen a steep fall in prices, not only because of NEET, but also because of the "cash" that was once freely available amongst certain sections of our society. Same with real estate prices. All sectors where huge amounts of unaccounted cash were traded have come to a grinding halt, compared to the era where these worthies were in power.

Yet various people talk about "efficient" money. Black money distorts the market and market prices as much or more than government action. But "free market" dogma rules the roost.

[A_Gupta]

Bloomberg reports:
Helpless Homebuyers Thwart India's Quick Fix for Bad Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... o-bad-debt

Fifteen miles east of India’s capital lies Jaypee Wish Town, a sprawling 1,162-acre site spotted with unfinished residential towers that embody the human cost of the nation’s bad-loan mess and point to the difficulty of resolving it.

Jaypee Infratech Ltd., Wish Town’s developer, is among the first 12 corporates that the central bank pushed into insolvency court after it was armed this May with new powers to expedite resolution of the nation’s more than $180 billion in soured debt. Hundreds of homebuyers have filed suit saying the loan-recovery proceedings threaten to leave them without homes or compensation, prompting the Supreme Court to halt the case on Sept. 4.

FYI, don't blame Modi:

Rastogi sold his home in Lucknow in 2010 to buy into Wish Town. With his dream home still a 17-floor empty concrete skeleton, he is living on rent. Of 32,000 apartments that were to be delivered by the end of 2013, Jaypee has handed over 6,500, according to court documents.

[Gus]

but has said no counting machines were used to count these notes!! The how did they count ? Manually ?

even brfites keep falling to this shenanigans by DDM..

the FULL reply from RBI is "no we did not use counting machines. We used sophisticated Currency Verification and Processing (CVPS) machines"

DDM only reported "no we did not use counting machines." part and haters started heckling and trolling.

This sort of reporting so pervasive, that even the vernacular ones pick up and re-report without verifying with source.

here's the golden rule - ALWAYS verify at ORIGINAL source. If a news reports says rbi said somethiing. Go to rbi website and check. or at least read multiple sources from many angles and triangulate.

[shaun]

What is intriguing is RBI in mid July was trying to source more counting machines and was trying to outsource some of the note counting to commercial banks and suddenly they have the "figure".

[Marten]

but has said no counting machines were used to count these notes!! The how did they count ? Manually ?

even brfites keep falling to this shenanigans by DDM..

the FULL reply from RBI is "no we did not use counting machines. We used sophisticated Currency Verification and Processing (CVPS) machines"

DDM only reported "no we did not use counting machines." part and haters started heckling and trolling.

This sort of reporting so pervasive, that even the vernacular ones pick up and re-report without verifying with source.

here's the golden rule - ALWAYS verify at ORIGINAL source. If a news reports says rbi said somethiing. Go to rbi website and check. or at least read multiple sources from many angles and triangulate.

Can't find my previous post in which I linked to the machine tender and estimated by when they will be done verifying.

[KrishnaK]

The sub-seven reality

[Austin]

RBI says SBI, ICICI, HDFC 'Too Big To Fail': What does it mean and how does it matter?

Does this mean now any one investing his money in ICICI or HDFC will be backed by Government in case the bank fails ? So its as good as PSU bank and too big to fail ?

[Austin]

Is the information accurate on the link ?

https://debtclock.tv/world/india/

[Picklu]

Two Anecdotes:
1. Salary payment is still irregular in civil area - not just real estate but also in infra projects.
2. In some other areas like paint, pharme etc - lay offs are starting

[Austin]

India’s public debt rises 3.6% to Rs63.35 trillion in June

India’s total public debt rises to Rs63.35 trillion till June-end, up 3.6% over the previous quarter, says government data

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/IElRcI ... -June.html

New Delhi: India’s total public debt rose to Rs63.35 trillion till June-end, up 3.6% over the previous quarter, according to government data released on Friday.

The total public debt (excluding liabilities under the public account) of the government was Rs61.13 trillion as of March-end. “This represented a quarter-on-quarter increase of 3.6% in Q1 FY18 as compared to a decrease of 1.15% in the previous quarter,” said the Public Debt Management report released by the finance ministry.

The report gives an account of the public debt management and cash management operations during the quarter and attempts a rationale for major activities. It also tries to provide information on various aspects of debt management. Internal debt constituted 93% of public debt as of June 2017 while marketable securities accounted for 83.2%.

The report also said that liquidity conditions in the economy remained comfortable and continue to be in surplus mode during the quarter post the demonetisation. It further said the cash position of the government during Q1 of FY’17 was somewhat stressed and it took recourse to Ways and Means Advances (WMA) from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to tide over this temporary phase.

This was due to front-loading of expenditure by the ministries and heavy repayment of G-secs falling during the quarter, combined with low cash inflows generally seen during the first half of the year. “Overdraft was also availed briefly during the quarter,” it said.

Cash Management Bills (CMBs) of varying durations amounting to Rs1.3 lakh crore were issued during the quarter to augment the cash position of the government with CMBs of Rs40,000 crore redeemed during the quarter itself. The government’s cash account is maintained with RBI.

The cash-flow mismatches of the government are largely managed through issuance of treasury bills, access to the WMA facility from the RBI and issuance of CMBs when in deficit and through auctions of its cash balance in market (through RBI) and buybacks of securities from market, when in surplus. The limits for WMA for the first quarter of the Financial Year 2017-18 (April 2017-June 2017) was fixed at Rs60,000 crore.

[Austin]

As India Inc struggles to cut down debt, the economy suffers

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

Thomson Reuters data, based on the latest annual earnings reports, shows India's corporate debt rose to a seven-year high at the end of March. More than a fifth of large companies did not earn enough to pay interest on their loans and the pace of new loans fell to the lowest in more than six decades.

The government reported on Aug 31 that annual GDP growth in the quarter ended June dropped to 5.7 percent, an envious pace for many countries but India's weakest since early 2014.

Thomson Reuters data shows net debt for 288 companies with a market capitalisation of more than $500 million, covering most big firms in India, has hit at least a seven-year high of 18 trillion rupees ($281 billion). Soured debt was 12 percent of total loans held by lenders at the end of March.

Another Thomson Reuters analysis showed more than a fifth of 513 Indian companies had interest cover of less than 1 percent.

[tushar_m]

Is the information accurate on the link ?

https://debtclock.tv/world/india/

China debt

https://debtclock.tv/world/china/

[Suraj]

Zero balance accounts under Jan Dhan down to 20% from 77% in 3 yrs: Jaitley

Discussing the progress of the scheme, Jaitley said 30 crore new accounts were opened under this scheme, with increasing number of accounts available to women and other backwards sections of the society. Zero balance accounts under PM Jan Dhan Yojana have come down to 20 per cent from 77 per cent in 3 years, he added.

Adding to this, the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana also assisted 8.77 crore under the scheme by provisioning small loans and financing small businesses, adding that the recipients of these have been women and vulnerable sections, outside the financial inclusion scheme.

"In a move to incentivize the process, the Centre and the LIC of India have brought out two insurance schemes and one pension scheme, directly linked to these accounts," he added.

"Over a 100 million people have been included in this scheme so far, whereby upon paying a premium of Rs.1 per month, beneficiaries can avail accident insurance worth Rs. 2 lakh. Upon paying a slightly higher premium, beneficiaries can avail full time death insurance as well," said Jaitley.

Such schemes, Jaitley said must directly reach the back accounts of those it has been targeted towards, adding that untargeted subsidy can lead to wastage and the idea of state subsidy for financial support will lose meaning.

India FY18 GDP growth likely at 7.1% as firms resort to restocking: Nomura

India's GDP growth is expected to be around 7.1 per cent this fiscal following a likely pick up in industrial production as firms resort to 'restocking' post-Goods and Services Tax (GST) especially ahead of festive season, says a Nomura report.

According to the Japanese financial services major, post-GST restocking is likely to drive a faster pace of industrial output growth in the coming quarters.


Before the implementation of GST, destocking was triggered largely owing to a steep fall in demand from consumers as they delayed purchases. Post GST implementation, restocking might pick up in anticipation of rising demand conditions.

Nomura further said the ongoing remonetisation will have a positive impact on the cash-intensive services sectors and this, in turn, will help to augur growth numbers.

"On the growth front, we expect industrial production to gradually pick up as firms focus on restocking after GST and especially ahead of the festive season; hence we think the recovery will likely continue to be led by consumption," Nomura said.

"Overall, we expect GDP growth of 7.1 per cent year-on- year and GVA growth of 6.7 per cent in 2017-18 (year ending March 2018)," it said.

Investments contract in first 4 months of FY18

The capital goods segment in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), a proxy for investment demand, has contracted for four straight consecutive months, showed the latest data. Since September last year, it has contracted every month, barring two.

Central government capex has grown at a robust 33.4 per cent in the first four months of the current financial year (FY18). But this has been offset by a fall in state governments’ capex.

A Business Standard analysis of 10 state governments’ spending pattern shows that these states, put together, have spent only a mere 19.8 per cent of their capex budget in the first four months of FY18, lower than their spending over the same period last year.

The combined budgetary allocation for capex of these states is a staggering Rs 2.5 lakh crore in FY18, as opposed to the Centre’s allocation of Rs 3.09 lakh crore.

Principal among the laggards are the states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

As against a capital outlay of Rs 53,257 crore, Uttar Pradesh has spent only 6.2 per cent, or Rs 3,293 crore, till July. Similarly, Punjab has spent only 9 per cent of its budgetary allocation.

Some economists have attributed this pattern to the elections in these states, which would imply that capital spending by these and other states should ramp up in the coming months.

But given the pressures that some of these states face on account of their Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) obligations as well as their farm loan waivers, it is difficult to say for sure.

[Austin]

Is the information accurate on the link ?

https://debtclock.tv/world/india/

China debt

https://debtclock.tv/world/china/

Chinese Public Debt is below 50 % which is what the Indian Debt clock count shows but its private sector debt is very high , Most debt are internal though much like Japan

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... isis[quote]

he Chinese government has pledged to double the size of the economy between 2010 and 2020 and has been prepared to see non-financial sector debt rise rapidly in order to achieve its aim. Total debt has quadrupled since the financial crisis to stand at $28tn (£22tn) at the end of last year.

The IMF said debt as a proportion of gross domestic product would rise from 235% to almost 300% by 2022. Previously, the Washington-based IMF – which publishes annual reports on its member countries – had said debt would peak at 270% of GDP.

“International experience suggests that China’s credit growth is on a dangerous trajectory, with increasing risks of a disruptive adjustment and/or a marked growth slowdown,” the IMF said.

With many of the advanced economies of the west struggling in the years since the financial crisis of 2007-09, China has acted as the growth engine of the global economy, accounting for more than half the increase in world GDP in recent years.

“Since 2008, private sector debt relative to GDP has risen by 80 percentage points to about 175% – such large increases have internationally been associated with sharp growth slowdowns and often financial crises”, the IMF said. It added that growth in the five years between 2012 and 2016 would have averaged 5.5% rather than 7.25% had credit growth been kept to a sustainable rate.
[/quote]

[Manish_Sharma]

https://swarajyamag.com/economy/the-nig ... tax-reform

The Nightmare Called GSTN: Implementation Issues Can Derail India’s Biggest Tax Reform
Aashish Chandorkar
- Sep 12, 2017, 3:00 pm


The Nightmare Called GSTN: Implementation Issues Can Derail
India’s Biggest Tax Reform
SNAPSHOT
With GSTN, the issue isn’t that there are technology glitches. Those were to be expected. The issue with GSTN is that the severity and the nature of these glitches out-shame the purpose of the network by a wide margin.

There’s a popular message being circulated on WhatsApp which says that filing your goods and service tax (GST) returns is the forty-ninth step of the Blue Whale game. The Blue Whale game is the latest internet fad, which urges participants to do difficult tasks, with the fiftieth and the last step being suicide. For a once in a lifetime indirect tax reform, it’s a pity that the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN), the backbone of the GST implementation, has not matched the historical nature of the work it is supporting.

To be sure, no large scale software implementation works without glitches. Anyone who has implemented and supported the post go-live phase of any large enterprise resource planning or core banking system software will attest to the sleepless nights. In fact many enterprises run two systems in parallel for a few days and mirror data, just to make sure day to day work is not affected. Now when new software is being implemented for 10 million users, the scale is unmatched, except in the world of consumer internet.

But with GSTN, the issue isn’t that there are technology glitches. Those were to be expected. The issue with GSTN is that the severity and the nature of these glitches out-shame the purpose of the network by a wide margin. The scale and the nature of use of GSTN were well known for many years. To then have the kind of troubles GSTN is having is really bad planning.

There are the usual traffic issues. The GSTN site won’t open or if it opens, navigating it for a transaction is near impossible. Memes about people staring at an immovable GSTN screen are flooding social media. Unless an unstoppable force – the resolve of the user – meets this immovable GSTN, it is very difficult to submit the desired data. But resolve comes at a cost – in this case, the time spent. Users are complaining of wasting hours on end spending time which should have been dedicated to sales or marketing or strategising.

Then there are the design flaws. If an invoice has line items with multiple tax rates, GSTN doesn’t accept it. The system takes only the first line as valid and the rest as duplicate. This is the kind of software requirement which should have been discussed practically on the first day of writing the software specifications. The same issue plagues credit and debit notes. If a credit or debit note is issued with multiple tax rates and multiple invoice references, the system generates multiple line items to match one such note.

Two transacting parties won’t obviously deal in multiple invoices or credit and debit notes just because the tax rates of the items mentioned were different. But then invoice matching is the holy grail of the GST regime – and rightly so for plugging tax leakages in a long value chain. However, this design puts a lot of onus on the users to work around and feed all relevant data to stay compliant.

The upload happens on the site in a specific file format called the json. Generating this format has its own complications, and currently a lot of time is being spent on this format compliance.

If a user gets all this data and file format in place, the user interface of the GSTN can play truant. It is very difficult to move between screens without either losing data or rekeying a lot of data, and there are many users and scenarios which require such a navigation. For example, if a user is checking input credit from one supplier and wants to check the GST numbers of suppliers to understand which supplier this input credit belongs to, it is not possible to do so without losing already keyed in data.

The current expectation of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) that businesses should file invoices every week or even every day is grossly flawed. Invoices keep changing till the last minute as any small businesswoman will testify. The customers almost always ask for modifications of details until the last day of filing. One party representing a single side of a two-sided transaction cannot suo moto upload the details of the invoice on the GSTN. The other side has to agree as well. The GSTN process flow does not account for these practical challenges.

There have been problems with security too. Some users have complained that they are seeing data from other businesses when they login. Whether these issues are fleeting or related to inherent design flaws, they can wreak havoc with the confidence in any system. Nothing repels a user from a technology product faster than breach of privacy and data.

The government put forth mechanisms to answer questions, including a help desk and a Twitter Q&A provision. Users are sometimes getting different answers to the same questions from these channels. And there is no guarantee that the resolution will actually satisfy a tax inspector when the scrutiny starts.

The users are dreading the day the e-way bills go live. An e-way bill is needed for transporting any goods from one point to another. If the GSTN does not work flawlessly when e-way compliance comes into effect, it will not be possible to move any goods in the economic system. In an economy already bogged down with growth challenges, the last thing anyone expects is logistics problems.

To top it all, the monthly GST Council meeting has become another event to fear. New directions are being issued regularly – in fact some of them are useful and necessary. But constant changes are becoming distracting rather than comforting because the underlying infrastructure is misbehaving. And then there is the question of changing and updating tax rates on different goods. The merit or the otherwise of the changes aside, industries will need proper visibility to plan their businesses and decide on investments. Business strategies cannot be held hostage to monthly meetings and should certainly not be forced to change so often in a sluggish economy.

All of these issues and more were hypothesised. Swarajya raised the possibility of an implementation standstill ahead of the GST go-live. Unfortunately, these suspicions have played out exactly as feared in the first two months. The government is also worried about the surprisingly high Rs 62,000 crore input claim against the first month’s tax collection. Since this input credit is against the transitional stock and the returns can now be filed until end October, it is fair to assume that this number will only go up. Of course this is a one-time setup issue.

The GST implementation has tested the patience of the tax community and the businesses alike. The good news for the government is that it got the timing perfect – there is a lot of time for tide things over before any political ramifications catch up. The bad news is that September till date and August have not been significantly better than July in terms of GSTN availability and usage.

A nation which prides on it software industry cannot be held hostage by technology. Outside of the fine prints of contracts and warranty agreements, there is enough expertise in the country to fix these issues. It is incumbent upon the government to think of new ideas and ways to tap into this large talent pool available right under its nose.

Let’s make no mistakes – GST is indeed historical. We just need the urgency and resolve to steer history in the right direction. This indeed is a real test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The author thanks Vivek Khaitan for his inputs to this article.

[Katare]

Watched Raghuram Rajan's interviews on multiple TV channels yesterday. We are blessed to have people like him around and I fervently wish that he becomes the Finance Minister soon. That will fix a whole host of structural and other issues in the economy and put us on a sustained 10% growth trajectory , with low inflation for the next 20 years thereafter. But no. We would rather kick him out and hand economic policy to some absolute whack jobs like S. Gurumurthy and some random yin- yangs who live in some alternate reality and who are simply so full of themselves even when they are criminally stupid , dumb and plain wrong to even know any better ,when someone else tells them so

The Modi govt economic policy is run by a much of whack jobs, especially the DeMo. The entire Demo exercise was a fool's errand and Raghuram and the RBI warned the govt of the serious costs. Manmohan Singh warned of a 2% hit to the GDP (after the exercise, coz obviously he couldnt have know of it before). Guess what ,it IS a close to 2% hit and a loss of 200,000 Crore in output, massive job losses in unorganised sector, a disaster which can't have any benefits because the cost of followup to see it through to realise anything would be simply too much politically (measures like disallowing withdrawals of over Rs 50,000 in a given year, banning cash payments for whole bunch of transactions , compulsory escrow and other tracking for land and real estate deals etc) and even that would be nebulous and not visible and wholly intangible..

But no, between DeMo and privatisation and bank cleanup , the latter was FAR easier. The Rs 2L crore, if spent on bank clean up would have got the economy moving again.

Fundamentally PRIVATE INVESTMENT IS DEAD it has been comatose since the UPAII started, and now it is just plain dead as nails . We need some huge fundamental things like accelerated depreciation , investment subsidy (think on the lines of cash for clunkers the EU did) and tax holidays to get investment going again (suspend the idiotic MAT business that got introduced just to fix guys who had large depreciation due to big investments for 10 years) . For that , the Govt needs to GET out of business , cut it's spending and the pressure it puts on borrowing. But no, the Govt thinks, it can jump start investment in a classic "Keynesian" manner by borrowing and spending.

But pray WHAT is the the visible effects of the govt spending ? It is not showing up in the bottomline of companies. It is NOT showing up in anything tangible on the ground (for e.g., how many tons of goods have moved on the DFC , the much ballyhooed infra initiative ? something that can change the game fundamentally), how is it that we are a power surplus country (for God's sake, I can't believe it.. the cost of power is so high for the guys who pay that we can't even evacuate the full installed capacity).

Lastly, I find Dr Rajan's explanation for the GDP bump that happened after UPA II to be very convincing . It is like this. When oil prices and commodity prices fell, what happened, is that our import bill fell, and with that , our net exports rose (coz the imports fell) ,which added roughly 1.5 to 2% of GDP over time. That effect is gone. Earlier, the global economy was comatose. But now major economies are firing (US, EU , even Japan). The exports in East Asia have recovered (Korea has done incredibly well, so has Japan and even China to a lesser extent), while our exports have simply not moved at ALL.

However, we are told that Nirmala Sitharaman has done an "incredible" job and promoted to Defence Minister . Frankly, I want to see the graph in exports under her watch and a graph of growth in world trade for the same period. Looks like we lost share in the % of global trade in the period.

All in all, I think the Govt should be ALARMED and indeed put in the emergency huddle to do something. But no, all we hear are platitudes .

If at the end of all this, if whackjobs like the SJM and the DeMo urging dudes are thoroughly discredited and turned to pasture (basically, the Marx with Cow types) that is the best thing that can happen. Guys like S. Gurumurthy and R. Vaidya and the rest of the SJM types should simply shut up. For 50 years, the whack jobs of the Red Commies wrecked this country (the ISI/Plannign Commission/DSE/JNU types) and now the Saffron Commies (i.e. Marx + Cow) types want to do an encore.

Ohh, how badly i wish you were wrong, uninformed, ignorant or troll but one must face the truth.

Modi has worked harder than almost all PM's, except for Banditji may be, he thinks long term, takes bold decidions and keeps initiative in foreign policy. He has given us a clean corruption free govt that actually functions. Yet the poor man if Infia would judge on what changes it brought to his life!

The evonomy is a bitch, it floats when it wants and sits on it's a$$ when it wants. When world was booming furing UPA 1 even Pakistan was growing at 6%, India grew at 8% and China flew at 10-12%. MMS reaped the benefit of that high tide and unless team Modi can spring a miracle in next few months voters would hold him accountable in 2019 for achche din. Whichever way we cut it, economy ( and defense) has been the weakest spot for this otherwise a massively effective govt.

Other issue with this govt is the poor bench strength of effective adminstrators and leaders. Gadkari is pure gold and Piyush Goyal has done great but rest are merely good minsters what Modi needs is a lot of great leaders.

[chetak]

^^^^^^^


RRR went studio hopping in a frantic bid to prove that India did him wrong by not keeping his brilliant self on as the RBI guv.

In the end, it is proven that he is an egoistic gasbag who did not have even the basic loyalty and courtesy for his boss.

from a guy who claimed that he saw illegal cow slaughter as a risk factor to the economy and his chicago school style of economics, I'd say that we dodged a serious bullet.

It is not enough to say that RRR had freedom to function, without interference, as the RBI guv but it is all about whether India had the freedom to function without him being a perpetual thorn in its side.

RRR's passing into well deserved oblivion went off without the faintest, or even the teeniest, tiniest discernible blip on India's financial firmament. No one gave a rat's.

This is despite the many "financial pundits", including some foolish foreign analysts, direly forecasting that the Indian stock market would tank forthwith, international rating agencies would downgrade India immediately, FDI and inflows of foreign money would stop and would not return for a very long time, the sun rose quite normally and routinely the very next morning.

and for someone like RRR with his colossal ego, that's got to hurt real bad.

hence the crappy book and mad scramble from studio to TV studio trying to pour fuel on a fire that he is trying so very hard to light.

[kapilrdave]

Basically, every single congi neta - including former FM and PM - has lost the credibility and moral right to talk and criticize the economic policies of the current govt. That's why this RR {deleted} is paradropped.

{deleted}

Ofcourse we also have the choice to not to use the past learnings and even to withdraw our right to exist as civilization.

[Katare]

He is just promoting his book to make a few bucks! He gave a years silence and now in typical massa style he is monetizing his stint before time erases its relevance.......purely selfish motives

[Gus]

The evonomy is a bitch, it floats when it wants and sits on it's a$$ when it wants. .

of course..if there was a way to keep it always on high growth...everybody would be doing it already!

but the key is mitigating and clearing impediments to facilitate growth and when growth happens, instead of squandering it, use it/invest in to keep it going on a momentum. We haven't caught on to high growth yet, but doing the right things is still the right thing to do.

Not doing DeMO and GST and going into the next growth cycle would only result in what happened in the last growth cycle. The people in the know, the tax evaders and the connected business folks ..made it really big while some trickled down to educated middle class and that's about it. The bottom did not change much. In fact the high inflation was added issues to them.

[chetak]

He is just promoting his book to make a few bucks! He gave a years silence and now in typical massa style he is monetizing his stint before time erases its relevance.......purely selfish motives

His CV is now worthless. He couldn't hack it and so was fired.

his professional reputation has taken a hit and folks will be asking WTF did you do in India??

He is the first RBI guv since independence not to have gotten an extension.

[chetak]

this is an interesting read

[Katare]

He is just promoting his book to make a few bucks! He gave a years silence and now in typical massa style he is monetizing his stint before time erases its relevance.......purely selfish motives

His CV is now worthless. He couldn't hack it and so was fired.

his professional reputation has taken a hit and folks will be asking WTF did you do in India??

He is the first RBI guv since independence not to have gotten an extension.

Chetak garu,
He is doing fine and would do great things in the future. I really don't see anything that i can hold against him. Contrary to many folk's opinin at BRF, to me he appears to be a truly patriotic son of mother India. He did great things at RBI with both the govt and we'll reap the benefits of his hard work and skills for years to come.