Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

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chetak
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by chetak »

hanumadu wrote:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/in ... 438033.cms
The Tata Steel bid translated into a 27% haircut for lenders. “Haircut on steel NPAs (15-30% of total NPAs) is likely to be contained at 40%, given the recent bidding under IBC.
Lanco Infratech will see the worst recovery.
not surprising at all.

Lanco Infratech has some very heavy hitters invested, from the same background.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Austin »

India may move WTO alone against US

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 441460.cms
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by VKumar »

(Deleted)

Mod note
Take your rumors someplace else .
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by A_Gupta »

Worth remembering.
In reality, trade balances are the flip side of capital flows: countries that attract more inflows of foreign capital than their own outflows must, by the sheer arithmetic, run current account deficits (that is, including investment income). Conversely, countries that are exporters of capital run current account surpluses.
(from Paul Krugman). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/opin ... nkish.html
So to sum things up: within the United States we have large regional trade imbalances that don’t reflect “unfair” trade policies, because interstate trade is totally free. And running trade surpluses isn’t a sign of success, nor is running deficits a sign of failure. If anything, much of the time it’s the reverse: fast-growing regions run deficits, stagnating regions run surpluses.
With respect to India, I'd say a similar thing holds. The key question is - are the deficits related to expenditures that are growth-favorable or anti-growth?
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Rahulsidhu »

A_Gupta wrote:Worth remembering.
In reality, trade balances are the flip side of capital flows: countries that attract more inflows of foreign capital than their own outflows must, by the sheer arithmetic, run current account deficits (that is, including investment income). Conversely, countries that are exporters of capital run current account surpluses.
(from Paul Krugman). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/opin ... nkish.html
This statement describes an accounting identity, but beyond that I am not sure why it would be particularly worth remembering. It does not really tell us all that much about things we are really interested in when we think about economics.
So to sum things up: within the United States we have large regional trade imbalances that don’t reflect “unfair” trade policies, because interstate trade is totally free. And running trade surpluses isn’t a sign of success, nor is running deficits a sign of failure. If anything, much of the time it’s the reverse: fast-growing regions run deficits, stagnating regions run surpluses.
With respect to India, I'd say a similar thing holds. The key question is - are the deficits related to expenditures that are growth-favorable or anti-growth?
The strong argument why intra-US trade may not be called "unfair", is that the US is a political union. This does not apply to international trade. Even within the US it is causing tensions.

In fact, note the weasel-wording of that sentence with the use of "much of the time". A good question worth asking these free-and-fair-trade theorists is why has the US, a much slower growing economy than China for many many years, been running a CAD against it? The most prominent trading relationship in the world has been contradicting the theory and yet the economists disregard it.

As far as India is concerned, the lesson is simple: do what the successful countries do, rather than what they say. It is of vital importance to build up a domestic industrial base and ensure at the same time that they have to compete globally.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

More and more signs of an economic revival:
Capacity utilisation up in select sectors; may lead to investment revival
There are early signs of an uptick in capacity utilisation in select sectors, which could be a precursor to an investment revival.

Utilisation rates are on the rise in cement, automobile ancillaries, engineering, casting and sheet metals, industry players told Business Standard.

A gauge of capacity utilisation is also provided by the RBI data on working capital loans. In line with the trend of rising capacity utilisation rates, working capital loans grew 6.4 per cent in the July-September quarter of 2017-18, up from 4.8 per cent in the preceding quarter. It had plummeted to a low of 1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2016-17.

“Our order intake has risen 20 to 25 per cent in 2017-18, signalling 80 per cent capacity utilisation in certain sectors like cement. Some of the sectors with high orders included food processing, alcohol and the carbon black industry,” said M S Unnikrishnan, managing director and chief executive officer, Thermax.

An executive at one of India’s largest heavy machinery supplier to original equipment manufacturers said his firm's capacity utilisation had improved to 80 per cent in the later part of the current financial year, up from 60 per cent two years ago.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Rahulsidhu »

Apropos of my post above, it is well worth reading what Keynes, as far back as 1933 had to say about free-trade and national self sufficiency.
I was brought up, like most Englishmen, to respect free trade not only as an economic doctrine which a rational and instructed person could not doubt, but almost as a part of the moral law. I regarded ordinary departures from it as being at the same time an imbecility and an outrage. I thought England's unshakable free trade convictions, maintained for nearly a hundred years, to be both the explanation before man and the justification before Heaven of her economic supremacy. As lately as 1923 I was writing that free trade was based on fundamental "truths" which, stated with their due qualifications, no one can dispute who is capable of understanding the meaning of the words."
But real-world experience had tempered his beliefs:
I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel--these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national. Yet, at the same time, those who seek to disembarrass a country of its entanglements should be very slow and wary. It should not be a matter of tearing up roots but of slowly training a plant to grow in a different direction.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/i ... keynes.htm

Now, there is no doubt that this is all very old and the world has changed a lot. But it is still worth asking if the international system is fundamentally different today than in 1933 so as to make Keynes' arguments irrelevant.

Make no mistake, India's persistent CAD is a big problem. That it comes against a strategic competitor makes it even worse. This needs to be tackled.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Austin »

How will the 'trade war' between China and America affect India?

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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by A_Gupta »

India’s services industries seen propping up capital investment
Services sector is likely to lead growth in gross fixed capital formation that had remained subdued in the last couple of years, says Care Ratings
Mumbai: India’s dominant services sector is not called the economic engine without reason.

The sector, which accounts for about 55.2% of gross value added, is likely to lead growth in gross fixed capital formation—a measure of investment spending—that had remained subdued in the last couple of years, according to an analysis by Care Ratings Ltd.

The Reserve Bank of India and investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are betting on a revival in private investments in Asia’s third-largest economy to boost growth from an expected four-year low. But gross fixed capital formation has fallen to 28.5% of gross domestic product in the year to March 2018 from 34.3% in the 2012 financial year, according to Care Ratings.
from: https://www.livemint.com/Politics/8umxd ... vestm.html
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Supratik »

Suraj
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

Borrowing plans for next fiscal year drop from last year:
Govt plans to borrow Rs 2.88 trn in H1FY19; to issue inflation indexed bond
The government will borrow Rs 2.88 trillion in the April-September period of next fiscal, which is 47.56% of the budgeted gross borrowing.
In April-September of current fiscal, the gross borrowing was Rs 3.72 trillion.

Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said the government will come out with inflation-indexed bonds linked to CPI or retail inflation.

Also, government securities of 1-4 years duration will be introduced.

He further said that the budgeted gross borrowing through G-Secs for fiscal 2018-19 was Rs 6.05 trillion, which would be used to fund the fiscal deficit of 3.3% of GDP.

"We are absolutely confident that we will be able to meet all expenditures without going into over draft," Garg told reporters here.
The 47.56% of budgeted gross borrowing in the first half of next fiscal is lower than the average of 60-65% in last five years.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by arun »

A_Gupta wrote:No 3 electricity producer now.
http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 086_1.html

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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by sum »

Quite a massive gap between # 1,2,3!!!
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Austin »

Suraj wrote:He further said that the budgeted gross borrowing through G-Secs for fiscal 2018-19 was Rs 6.05 trillion, which would be used to fund the fiscal deficit of 3.3% of GDP.
Rs 6 trillion would be like $ 90 billion
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Kashi »

sum wrote:Quite a massive gap between # 1,2,3!!!
The gap between 1 and 2 is more than India's entire electricity generation!!
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Vips »

Kashi wrote:
sum wrote:Quite a massive gap between # 1,2,3!!!
The gap between 1 and 2 is more than India's entire electricity generation!!
That gap will remain unless majority of the Indian homes have an Air Conditioner.

Millions of Indians are expected to cross that threshold in the next 10-15 years, so analysts expect demand for room air-conditioner demand akin to the surge in China around the turn of the millennium. Urban Chinese purchased 200 million room air conditioners in 15 years, creating—with just one appliance—300 GW of electric demand, the equivalent of six Californias.

In India, air conditioning is expected to double the country's electricity demand in 15 years, requiring 200-300 new electric plants for that one appliance. Air conditioning is part of the reason India is expected to be the world's largest contributor to new electricity demand between now and 2040.

"India would be the largest contributor to the additional demand that may come in that timeframe," Abhyankar said. "Most of China’s energy sector has grown already, China is kind of reaching a plateau, and India is where China was about 10 to 15 years ago. That’s why these next two decades are important for India."
The study projected a base case consumption of 42 terawatt-hours in 2010, 195 terawatt-hours in 2020, and 552 terawatt-hours in 2030 for air conditioning.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by vijayk »

https://www.dailyo.in/business/tax-terr ... 23135.html
It’s not easy to upset business tycoons, salaried employees and small traders all at the same time. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has, however, accomplished this feat with customary aplomb.

Businessmen say “inspector raj” is back with a vengeance. Demonetisation has had unintended consequences. Lakhs of Indian businessmen and traders proved more imaginative than the government had thought. They contrived to convert virtually all their black money to white, depositing crores of rupees in cash into their bank accounts, preferring the risk of income tax scrutiny and raids to losing unaccounted cash holdings.

Deluged with income tax returns that didn’t match assessees’ new black cash deposits, the authorities are now stuck in a quagmire of their own making. There just isn’t enough manpower to chase all the dodgy cash deposits. Those who took the risk of income tax scrutiny by declaring all their black money are busy “settling” matters. Since there are lakhs of such assessees, most slip through the net.


Distraught bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance (MoF) have reacted in the time-honoured way of bureaucrats: raid and prosecute. Their victims have reacted in the way the Indian system works: go to court. With multiple tribunal appeals and court challenges available, black money-newly-turned-white in bank accounts is safe for an indefinite period of time.

Meanwhile, the tax terrorism the NDA government had pledged to end is back.

As TV Mohandas Pai and S Krishnan wrote acerbicly in The Economic Times on March 22: “One of the major promises made by the BJP government when it came to power in 2014 was to stop tax terrorism. Finance minister Arun Jaitley proclaimed before the 2014 election that tax terrorism was the biggest threat to India and he would stop it. The problem of tax terrorism persists in this regime as well. Tax disputes have risen massively due to high target setting by the political establishment over the years. The I-T department collects tax on a perverse assessment by force and when taxpayers protest, officers agree, but confess that they have a collection target to achieve. They instead suggest that taxpayers appear against the assessment and obtain refunds.

“When the NDA government came to power, the amount of tax disputes in March 2014 was Rs 4.10 lakh crore, which has gone up to Rs 6.10 lakh crore in March 2017, a 50 per cent increase. The FM also agreed that injustice was done to Vodafone, but has not remedied it yet. If promises made in Parliament are not kept, the credibility and trust in government will suffer. It’s time our FM kept his promise.”

While delivering his Union Budget speech in 2015, Jaitley promised to cut corporation tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent. He still hasn’t done it. As a sop, in the 2018-19 Union Budget last month, Jaitley cut corporation tax to 25 per cent - but only for companies with an annual turnover of less than Rs 250 crore. This, Jaitley declared, covered 99 per cent of Indian companies. What he didn’t say is the remaining one per cent of companies with an annual turnover of over Rs 250 crore account for over 90 per cent of corporate tax revenue.

Why this sleight of hand?

Because extending the 25 per cent corporation tax rate to all companies would mean a loss of an unaffordable Rs 70,000 crore in revenue. By reducing tax to 25 per cent on 99 per cent of companies with an annual turnover below Rs 250 crore, but which account for only 10 per cent of corporation tax revenue, Jaitley got the optics right but broke his 2015-2016 Budget pledge.

Tax terrorism helps nobody. Most cases go into long-term litigation. They take years or even decades to conclude. India doesn’t have separate commercial courts (as, for example, Britain does) to fast-track revenue disputes.
This then is the biggest benefit of GST – transparency.

Yet India remains under-taxed. Farmers pay no tax. There are some “no-go” areas where I-T officials admit they dare not venture. As one officer says sheepishly, “Some community enclaves don’t allow us to step in - they threaten violence. Business here carries on in cash. No books of account exist.”

Many of the scams unearthed over the past decade originated in the finance or defence ministry. It is here where the politician-bureaucrat nexus is most toxic. Scams where investigations have been mysteriously stalled include income tax cases against television channels and the national spot exchange (NSEL). The bank fraud by Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi took place under the watchful eyes of the banking department which is a part of the MoF.

The MoF has in five Union Budgets over four years consistently disappointed salaried employees. Schemes that have succeeded - financial inclusion through Jan Dhan Yojana, Mudra loans for small entrepreneurs and direct benefit transfers (DBT), which sideline middlemen who used to siphon off subsidies for the poor - were created by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The MoF for its part stalled one rank, one pension (OROP) for several months, reduced defence allocations, delayed farm loan waivers and alienated small business traders with a needlessly complex GST.

It’s no easy task to upset voters across such wide demographies. This government has managed to do just that.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by disha »

^Farticle. When BS is posted., it takes immense effort to ensure that the muck is cleaned out.

The last para of the article gives way to the motivation & intent. ‘Voters’.

This same journos missed the stagflation of 2011-2014 by a mile while it was gappening right under their noses!
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by A_Gupta »

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-pay ... sidelines/
"Mobile payments skyrocket in India while banks watch from the sidelines

Digital payments firms like PayTM, Google Tez, and the recent entrant WhatsApp are rapidly pushing credit and debit cards into the background."
The speed at which this has been happening in India is remarkable, but it makes complete sense when you remember that cash was king in the country simply because banks have been excruciatingly slow to bring the 800 million or so unbanked into the financial system. It just didn't make economic sense to them.

Then came two seismic events that transformed things almost overnight. One was the mandatory opening of hundreds of millions of bank accounts in a thrust led by the Modi government that was then linked to a national identification scheme with biometrics. Suddenly, a whole new population received access to digital payments even though they may not have smartphones that allow them to make this happen as yet. But even smartphone adoption is changing rapidly.

Secondly, when the Modi government almost overnight took 86 percent of the existing currency in India out of circulation, it gave one sector an unlikely boost, even if businesses and citizens nationwide were reeling because of a lack of cash to conduct daily activities -- the number of UPI transactions skyrocketed by as much as 57,000 percent to date, according to Mint.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by JohnTitor »

Sadly, PayTM is Chinese now.

Would have been good to have one Indian owned private payments company.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Chandragupta »

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Last edited by Suraj on 29 Mar 2018 20:06, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Politics
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by A_Gupta »

https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/st ... 2018-03-28
Former Rajya Sabha MP and RBI governor, Bimal Jalan at the third edition of Mail Today Build India Conclave said that the current economic and political situation of India is stronger and better than at any given time in the last 25 years as the government comprises the majority of one party.

This is the best time to achieve high growth because the majority of one party in the government gives the country the strength to make decisions without any political hurdle, he said.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by A_Gupta »

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/busin ... 39575.html
India needs more economic reforms to achieve its potential growth rate of 8-9 per cent, Nobel laureate Nouriel Roubini said today.
....
"My observation about India is that India has bright long term economic future... India should do more economic reform and more macro stabilisation to be able to increase its potential growth to well above 7 per cent and to 8-9 per cent," Roubini said at the India Economic Conclave.

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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

As Sensex rises 11%, investors' wealth swells nearly Rs 21 trn in FY18 to 142 trillion ($2.25 trillion)
Led by the surge in stocks, the total market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies rose by Rs 20704.72 billion to Rs 142249.97 billion.

Investors' wealth surged Rs 20.70 trillion during 2017-18 fiscal helped by robust broader market sentiment where the BSE benchmark index rose by over 11 per cent.

The 30-share Sensex soared 3,348.18 points, or 11.30 per cent, to 32,968.68 during 2017-18. The flagship index touched its all-time high of 36,443.98 on January 29, 2018.
Govt hopes to create 10 mn jobs by bearing entire 12% of pension incentive
The government hopes to create 1 crore new jobs by bearing the entire 12 per cent of the basic salary that employers are mandated to make towards pension for the first three years for new employees.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday approved payment for the entire 12 per cent contribution for first three years for new staff.

Since the launch of scheme in August 2016, Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY), as many as 30 lakh workers have already benefited, he said.

"We feel that the government's decision will help create 1 crore new jobs, and we will increase budget provisioning by about Rs 6,500-Rs 10,000 crore under this scheme," he said.
Title is rather misleading. It's not that deposit growth is tepid, but that the previous year saw so much deposit growth due to DeMo that there's a high base effect:
Deposit growth and credit expansion a tale of contrasts in 2017-18
Credit growth gathered steam, in tandem with economic recovery, albeit in a gradual manner, from early part of the third quarter of the current financial year

Year-on-year growth moved into double digits (10.7%) in December 2017

The enhanced working capital requirement and shift from bond market to banks, amid tight liquidity is driving corporate demand

The retail segment has shown robust growth. It rose by 20 per cent year-on-year till February 2018

The financial year (2017-18) began with high double-digit growth in deposits, showing some effect of demonetisation. But the pace of liabilities expansion began to moderate and slowed down sharply in the third quarter. It did see some pick-up in the fourth quarter
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Bart S »

JohnTitor wrote:Sadly, PayTM is Chinese now.

Would have been good to have one Indian owned private payments company.
Chinese are investors in PayTM but it is still very much Indian controlled and as a payments bank is full subject to RBI regulations etc. If needed it can be taken back, however there is nothing special about PayTM, all it has is a bit of brand recognition and first mover advantage as one of the early wallet firms, that is slowly fading out. However the original proprietary PayTM payment/wallet system is virtually dead now, the only way for it to have any traction is via the same UPI system that the banks use. They have been better at marketing their crap than the GOI has been with UPI though.

The second statement is very ill-informed as there plenty of Indian payment/wallet companies including PhonePe, Pockets, Airtel etc and most are better than Paytm. The key is UPI which is a GOI controlled system. Even Google Tez and Whatsapp have to use UPI so it isn't like Mastercard/Visa where they run their own payments system. All they have is a front end into the fully Indian owned and operated transaction system.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by achoudhury »

Bart S wrote:
JohnTitor wrote:Sadly, PayTM is Chinese now.

Would have been good to have one Indian owned private payments company.
Chinese are investors in PayTM but it is still very much Indian controlled and as a payments bank is full subject to RBI regulations etc. If needed it can be taken back, however there is nothing special about PayTM, all it has is a bit of brand recognition and first mover advantage as one of the early wallet firms, that is slowly fading out. However the original proprietary PayTM payment/wallet system is virtually dead now, the only way for it to have any traction is via the same UPI system that the banks use. They have been better at marketing their crap than the GOI has been with UPI though.

The second statement is very ill-informed as there plenty of Indian payment/wallet companies including PhonePe, Pockets, Airtel etc and most are better than Paytm. The key is UPI which is a GOI controlled system. Even Google Tez and Whatsapp have to use UPI so it isn't like Mastercard/Visa where they run their own payments system. All they have is a front end into the fully Indian owned and operated transaction system.
Bart, All the above you said is correct. But, the basic point of the poster is why dont we have an "Indian company" ( I gather Indian means ; Indian financed , created by Indian technology operated by Indian People and serving Indian Consumers.) Your answer correctly posits that PaytM is Indian created fin-tech company operated by Indians ( VJS and Indian employees of PayTM ) serving Indian consumer. But it is not financed by Indians. I think that is the grouse, if I understand correctly. And just by that attribute , it makes PayTM, a chinese company.

I think it would be instructive to know that China's biggest company i.e. Tencent ( owns WeChat) was angel funded by Naspers and it still is largest stakeholder. Naspers is a South African company. I am glad that chinese did not moan, certainly not enough, that Tencent is a south african company. Similarly, Alibaba was financially backed by Yahoo in its infancy.

Basically, my point is that just infusion of capital does not decide nationality of a company. In fact, capital has no nationality. It is truly a global animal in flesh and spirit. It will simply follow where profit is. That is its Dharma , its very nature.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

If Indians pay for it in dollars , euros or yuan, is it Indian or foreign financed ? How about if it’s an American shelling out rupees ? :-)

So many contradictions in first saying ‘Indian financed’ then saying ‘capital has no nationality’ . By that logic the Chinese could front up some Indian employees and make their capital Indian ...
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by nandakumar »

Suraj wrote:If Indians pay for it in dollars , euros or yuan, is it Indian or foreign financed ? How about if it’s an American shelling out rupees ? :-)

So many contradictions in first saying ‘Indian financed’ then saying ‘capital has no nationality’ . By that logic the Chinese could front up some Indian employees and make their capital Indian ...
The last part of your post already happened in the telecom sector which too had foreign ownership restrictions. A lot of so called Indian money was a case of Indian nationality on hire for foreign capital. Hutchison Max turned Hutchison Essar was a good example of this.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by chetak »

Suraj wrote:If Indians pay for it in dollars , euros or yuan, is it Indian or foreign financed ? How about if it’s an American shelling out rupees ? :-)

So many contradictions in first saying ‘Indian financed’ then saying ‘capital has no nationality’ . By that logic the Chinese could front up some Indian employees and make their capital Indian ...
lots of Indian power companies, financed by the hans have purchased han built heavy generation equipment as well as associated infrastructure.

With the present condition of the Indian private power players, do we really know how these han NPAs are being handled.??

The normal han play is to aggressively seek enforced equity participation and management control.

What if this play has already manifested in India too??
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

Names of projects and reference news please.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Austin »

Since India is borrowing $90 billion for 2018-19 to fund its deficit , Can any coutry or countries if it wishes too can buy Indian Government Bonds and keep it part of its forex reserves ? This bonds pay handsome return and has sovereign backing so its safe ?

Internationally what is the credit quality rating of Indian Bonds ? Thanks
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Suraj »

Austin boss, there have been literally dozens of posts about foreign holding limits of Indian government debt being raised many times, over the past two years. The short answer is yes, they're in huge demand from foreign MFs and other agencies, for central, state and corporate debt, all denominated in Rupees. Sorry I can't feed you links. There have been way too many posts about this and you should search it.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Bart S »

achoudhury wrote:
Bart S wrote:
Chinese are investors in PayTM but it is still very much Indian controlled and as a payments bank is full subject to RBI regulations etc. If needed it can be taken back, however there is nothing special about PayTM, all it has is a bit of brand recognition and first mover advantage as one of the early wallet firms, that is slowly fading out. However the original proprietary PayTM payment/wallet system is virtually dead now, the only way for it to have any traction is via the same UPI system that the banks use. They have been better at marketing their crap than the GOI has been with UPI though.

The second statement is very ill-informed as there plenty of Indian payment/wallet companies including PhonePe, Pockets, Airtel etc and most are better than Paytm. The key is UPI which is a GOI controlled system. Even Google Tez and Whatsapp have to use UPI so it isn't like Mastercard/Visa where they run their own payments system. All they have is a front end into the fully Indian owned and operated transaction system.
Bart, All the above you said is correct. But, the basic point of the poster is why dont we have an "Indian company" ( I gather Indian means ; Indian financed , created by Indian technology operated by Indian People and serving Indian Consumers.)
Even on that count he is wrong, as there are at least a half dozen prominent competitors of PayTM that are totally Indian. As I said, nothing special about PayTM, it's original proprietary payments system tech is dead and if you check their app they are more of a shopping app now. The only way forward for them is to plug into UPI/IMPS like the rest of the apps, which is very much Indian in every shape or form.

To use an analogy UPI/IMPS = Indian Railways, PayTM etc = travel agent.
Vasu
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Vasu »

Vips wrote:
Kashi wrote:
The gap between 1 and 2 is more than India's entire electricity generation!!
That gap will remain unless majority of the Indian homes have an Air Conditioner.

Millions of Indians are expected to cross that threshold in the next 10-15 years, so analysts expect demand for room air-conditioner demand akin to the surge in China around the turn of the millennium. Urban Chinese purchased 200 million room air conditioners in 15 years, creating—with just one appliance—300 GW of electric demand, the equivalent of six Californias.

In India, air conditioning is expected to double the country's electricity demand in 15 years, requiring 200-300 new electric plants for that one appliance. Air conditioning is part of the reason India is expected to be the world's largest contributor to new electricity demand between now and 2040.

"India would be the largest contributor to the additional demand that may come in that timeframe," Abhyankar said. "Most of China’s energy sector has grown already, China is kind of reaching a plateau, and India is where China was about 10 to 15 years ago. That’s why these next two decades are important for India."
When questions are asked if the warming planet has any opportunities at all, I realize now that the air conditioning industry is sitting on a goldmine. The last few years have been the hottest on record, year on year, and not expected to taper any time soon. Yet development parameters remain unchanged.
chetak
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by chetak »

Suraj wrote:Names of projects and reference news please.
Read long time ago but will try and search.

One reliance company was mentioned, IIRC. I think that it belonged to chotabhai.

With the recent financial and NPA troubles of chotabhai, that asset may have been sold to someone else.

OK, got one link for you.

China holds key to India’s energy future

PHILLIP M HANNAM


Cheap Chinese equipment has made coal-based power an attractive option in India. Will that stall a shift to renewables?

India is the focus of much international attention leading up to the UN’s climate negotiations in Paris later this year. India expects to follow a carbon-intensive industrialisation path as in the case of almost every major economy, most recently China.

However, China — which consumes roughly half of global coal — is going to great lengths to cap its domestic coal consumption, aided by new policies and the dampening of economic growth rates. Following several years where nearly 1.5 GW of coal power was installed in China weekly, Chinese domestic coal consumption declined in 2014. The rate of coal power capacity addition has slowed too, though China is still expected to install 42 GW of new coal capacity this year alone.

Just because momentum is shifting away from coal in China does not mean that the country is no longer part of the global coal boom. A glut in coal power equipment among Chinese manufacturers has led to China becoming a leading exporter — buoyed by state-affiliated banks and export-credits — with important implications for India’s power sector portfolio.

Economies of scale
India has become a new market for China’s massive coal power manufacturing base. China’s off-the-shelf equipment exports are cheaper and quicker to market than equipment made by India’s domestic producers — most notably L&T and state-owned BHEL.

Export competitors in the OECD are bound by restrictive export-credit rules, which China does not observe. China’s three largest thermal power equipment manufacturers, Shanghai Electric, Dongfang Electric and Harbin Electric began finding business abroad after China’s domestic market slowed.

Over 60 per cent of India’s coal power equipment ordered by private developers in the past decade has come from Chinese vendors, commonly with the financial backing of Chinese state banks, amounting to over 100 GW of coal power installed or in the pipeline involving Chinese firms.

Reliance Power signed a $5 billion MoU in 2011 with a consortium of Chinese state banks intending to build over 16 GW of coal power in India. This led to a rush for Chinese financing among other power developers seeking low-cost financing packages for large coal schemes, including Lanco Infratech, Adani and Jindal.


How much coal?
According to a report by the Prayas Energy Group in India, as of August 2011, 513 GW of proposed coal power capacity was under various stages of review and approval by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Few projects have historically been rejected during this approval process, but the proposed quantity of coal power — five to six times India’s current installed capacity — far exceeds capacity additions called for in India’s power planning process.

The officially planned capacity addition in India’s 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) is 60 per cent coal (69.8 GW out of 118.5 GW). The coal additions for the 13th Five Year Plan (2018-22) are expected to be similar.

The scale of India’s coal boom — relying just on official numbers and ignoring the 513 GW pipeline — at least keeps pace with highly ambitious plans for renewable power. The Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission has a target of 100 GW of solar, in addition to 60 GW of wind, planned by 2022.

Whether India’s coal future becomes a reality is an open question. The government has been sensitive to competition with domestic suppliers, but any resistance toward the Chinese success in India’s coal power market is half-hearted. Domestic manufacturers pushed vigorously and successfully for a 21 per cent tariff on Chinese coal power equipment, put in place in 2012, making Chinese imports less attractive, particularly on top of rupee depreciation.

The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and many state generation companies refuse to source equipment from China on the grounds of equipment quality, though allegiance to domestic manufacturers is likely to be a motivating factor.

But the government sees the Chinese competition with domestic manufacturers as driving generation costs down. Prime Minister Modi was just in China pushing for the acceleration of industrial parks discussed in MoUs from September 2014, which would include power equipment service centres to support China coal power equipment operating in India. However, the influx of Chinese equipment is certainly not the only variable cutting against domestic equipment manufacturers’ recent struggles. The coal block re-auctioning, weaker than expected electricity demand, coal price fluctuations for imports, and poor initial structuring of project risk have all contributed to the stalling of the coal power sector.

From a longer-term perspective, the effects of Chinese subsidised coal power equipment imports may have two countervailing effects on power sector planning. On the one hand, Chinese subsidisation of coal power makes a coal-based development model less expensive and enhances the efficiency of the domestic sector through competition.

Assuming projects in the pipeline eventually move forward, private developers purchasing inexpensive Chinese coal power equipment will feel wedded to their cost advantage, and continue investing their human and financial capital in coal development rather than alternative power sources.

On the other hand, as Indian power sector manufacturers, which are politically powerful, become less competitive against Chinese firms, their political pressure to uphold a coal-based development model decreases.

BHEL and other companies remain heavily invested in thermal power, but they are also diversified enough to benefit from growth in other sectors. Firms with diversified portfolios and capabilities will support government plans to expand solar and wind, even at the expense of the long-term market opening for coal.

The renewable angle
The delay in coal construction seems to bode well for renewable power thus far. The 22 GW Solar Mission was already seen as ambitious when it was announced in 2010, but increased to 100 GW in November 2014 (above an installed solar base of 3 GW).

An unprecedented pace of development would be required, along with $140-160 billion in funding, according to one estimate. The government’s growing confidence in the potential for solar and wind may be reflective of the challenges faced by coal.

If the coal power sector overcomes the current procedural and judicial barriers, growth could proceed quickly, aided by inexpensive imports from China. China and India’s coal power sectors are intertwined. How it plays out will have important climate impactions.

The writer is a PhD candidate at Princeton University, where he studies China’s role in global energy governance.This article is by special arrangement with the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania
Austin
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by Austin »

Suraj wrote:Austin boss, there have been literally dozens of posts about foreign holding limits of Indian government debt being raised many times, over the past two years. The short answer is yes, they're in huge demand from foreign MFs and other agencies, for central, state and corporate debt, all denominated in Rupees. Sorry I can't feed you links. There have been way too many posts about this and you should search it.
Suraj , Thanks for the reply that answers my question.

Memory is not my strongest asset but I do remember now we discussing this earlier.
nam
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by nam »

India is now the 2nd largest producer of mobile phones. From 3 million in 2014 to 11 million. Import of full handset reduces by 50%. We may not be producing components, however this is a start.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bus ... 565476.cms

GoI has upped the custom on components. There has been recently cribbing about it, however this will force companies to manufacture in India, once large scale need builds up, like it is happening with mobile phones.

This is the key. We need to hit the Chinese where it hurts the most. Electronics export.
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Re: Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

Post by jaysimha »

https://dea.gov.in/sites/default/files/ ... 018-19.pdf

Ministry of finance
Department of economic affairs
( budget division )

Final demands of grants for 2018 - 2019 voted by loksabha
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