Indian Economy News & Discussion - Nov 27 2017

[Kaivalya]

Startup statistics from Business Standard research desk (unfortunately they dont quote their source)

https://m.rediff.com/business/special/t ... 190916.htm

How fast is India's start-up universe expanding? Explained in 7 charts
By Abhishek Waghmare | Last Updated at September 16 2019 02:12 IST


There are nearly 30,000 start-ups in India, supported by an ecosystem of availability of finance, talent, connectivity, and incubation facilities. How strong is the ecosystem? A report by TiE Delhi NCR and Zinnov answers this question.

How fast is India’s start-up universe expanding? At the national level, the start-up universe expanded at the fastest pace in 2015, after which the pace started receding (Chart 1). Only 800 new start-ups have risen in the first six months of 2019, while 2015 had seen nearly 7,000 start-ups come up.

[kit]

The SE Asia obviously love the Chinese routing goods through their country. They get exports on their book and taxes, without actually doing anything.

Even if we insist on value addition, they can easily cook up the books. Instead of putting made in burma on a phone box, they will put made in burma on the phone cover!

The way out of this is to insist on some sort of equalized trading. You cannot export goods to India, if you are not importing at-least 3/4 of your exports.

US & India are the biggest account deficient economies in the world. We are the one driving the demand.

India needs to move decisively in its reforms and investment to avoid Mexico,s status vs USA .. It needs to be a manufacturing powerhouse and export driven , Not be a consumer addicted to cheap stuff from China, it can put geopolitical equations as a part of trade practices esp vs China.,

[kit]

[https://m.timesofindia.com/business/in ... 572740.cms

India will reduce its china imports whatever there is at stake.. if the chinese do not increase their imports from India. China imports include those coming from second or third country routings as well.

[Mollick.R]

Deleted. Almost nothing from the politics thread is suitable for crossposting in this thread.

[UlanBatori]

Move over, Amartyaji!

Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer have jointly won the Economics Nobel for the year 2019 for their “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
He is the eighth Indian-born person to win a Nobel.
Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. Born in Kolkata, Dr. Banerjee’s parents were also economics professors. After his post-graduation from JNU, he obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He specialised in developmental economics.

Abhijitji can become next Chancellor of Nalanda.

[Najunamar]

Abhijit was one of the e-con-omists who came up with the "brilliant" (a)NYAY scheme for pappi. Thank God Indian voters aren't as dumb as the "ig"Noble committee...

[KJo]

http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/ ... 47464.html

[dinesh_kimar]

Hee hee, all our stalwarts are alert to red flags this time. It's a riot !

- Bong
- indian origin US economist
- Ford foundation
- American wife
- JNU
- poverty elevation
- Nobel prize.

It's like an MMS dream sequence.

I'm laughing with glee how TOI editorials will come out now. I should probably bet on the satta market.

[SRajesh]

Deleted. Poster warned.

[Amber G.]

Deleted. Please take all this back to the politics thread.

[shaun]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... s-disaster

[Cain Marko]

Folks can diss AB all they want, but he echoes exactly what Susu has also been saying for years, demands is low and GOI measures need to fix that in a hurry...

[CRamS]

Deleted political commentary.

[vijayk]

https://swarajyamag.com/economy/indias- ... t-it-wrong
India’s Problem Isn’t Demand: How Most Economists Have Got It Wrong

The recent slowdown in the Indian economy has been attributed to the slackening of demand by almost all economists. There’s near unanimity on the above diagnosis within the spectrum of neo-Keynesian economists – from Jayati Ghosh on the Left to Subramanian Swamy on the Right.
Of course, depending on where they lie within the above spectrum, their solutions could range from the “near Marxist” recommendation to triple Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) allocations, to an “understandable, but nevertheless incorrect” recommendation to abolish income tax for individuals. All this as a mechanism for boosting demand, which happens to be the apparent villain in this growth slowdown in India.

Let’s make just a couple of points before we turn to our main theme. First, I am in complete favour of abolishing income taxes, and a whole lot of other taxes as well. But let’s not use the pretext of weak demand. It should be done from the purely libertarian ethos of individual liberty and limited government. All that the current proposal would do is transfer the burden of corporations from income tax to inflation tax – which is a much more nefarious form of taxation.

Imagine an island where people are living in primitive conditions producing barely subsistence levels of food. Is there a demand for cars and cellphones on that island? Of course, since none of them own one, why not just give it to them in order to stimulate demand? Okay, forget cars or cellphones, why not give them clothing and soap? The point is that giving it would be charity and not business – and hence unsustainable.

Whether the cost of the charity is borne by the producing business or the government doesn’t alter the futility or immorality of such an action. In fact, government funding is far more insidious, as all sorts of 'pork' gets bundled with such a stimulus and the costs are unevenly borne by the people at the bottom of the pyramid – as is the case with all inflationary actions of the government. It really takes a massive leap of faith to believe that demand comes from a printing press.

The real solution for us is to allow interest rates to find their natural levels where it would hasten the liquidation of the malinvestments made so far. Let the chips fall where they may and allow markets to direct the resources to where they are most needed.
That is the only way to build a sustainable and robust economic growth model. And the beauty of this free market model, as history has repeatedly shown, is that this automatically ensures growth with equity. It’s only when the government steps in to ensure equity that we have situations where 1 per cent of people corner all the gains.
As far as the government/finance ministry is concerned, they should focus on balancing the budgets by dramatically downsizing their expenditures and deregulating the rather onerous structures that we have created for ourselves.
The growth mantra for the government is straightforward – downsize, deregulate and follow sound money policies. I think it’s a fair to assume that we are not doing any of the three. In fact, I would bet that we are going to get the exact opposite on all the three counts.

[Nikhil T]

Loan mela by public sector banks successful; disbursed Rs 81,000 crore

The Finance Ministry on Monday said loans worth Rs 81,781 crore were disbursed during the nine-day outreach programme or loan mela organised by public sector banks starting October 1.

Finance Secretary Rajeev Kumar said, "Rs 81,781 crore was disbursed in the outreach programme. Of these, new loans accounted for Rs 34,342 crore."

Sitharaman declared that all public sector banks are "flush with money" and are ready to lend to all sectors including medium and small-scale enterprises (MSMEs).

"Credit across all sectors was given by banks (agriculture, vehicle). The total amount of money given by banks stood at Rs 81,781 crore in nine days," she said.

Another outreach programme is likely to be conducted by banks for four days starting October 21. This outreach programme is expected to address the liquidity concerns impact consumption, which has dropped steeply amid an economic slowdown.

I think this loan mela business has good intentions, but is fundamentally a bad idea.
1. Indiscriminate lending was what led us into the giant PSB bad loan mess and just when things are getting better slightly, we shouldn't do anything to make it worse.
2. GoI needs to stop treating PSB banks as its personal bank and start behaving like an investor. If GoI needs to increase demand, let it find budgetary means to finance it, not depend upon PSB banks to do it. We should build measures to increase lending by both Private and PSB banks, not just the latter.
3. Such top down mandates will force banks to fudge numbers and impact, because they are under tremendous pressure to meet "targets".
[url=
https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 457_1.html]Color, but no credit at loan melas[/url]

Although letters of loan sanctions were handed out to customers on the launch day of the mela spread across some 90 districts, most of these were already under process for some weeks at the branch level. Some others had secured in-principle approval from banks recently. Ahead of the mela, public sector banks called up customers who had applied for loans, telling them to collect their sanction letters at these camps.

The camps failed to draw new customers in large numbers. “The footfall of walk-in customers was low. There are two reasons to it: some of these camps are taking place in community halls and second, banks had less time to publicise the loan mela,” a zonal manager of a PSB said, requesting anonymity. He said that banks were given a final list of venues to hold these camps only on Monday. Bank officials said that while there wasn’t any aggressive mass advertising initiative, banks ensured that their customers receive mailers and SMS about the outreach drive. Limited fund for advertising and promotions was cited as a constraint.

[Kaivalya]

To aid NBFCs, the government will allow NBFCs with “investment grade” to participate in the credit guarantee scheme, under which government provides a one-time partial credit guarantee to PSBs for first loss of up to 10 per cent for purchase of high-rate pooled assets of NBFCs totaling Rs 1 trillion, notified in August.

NBFCs with a minimum rating of ‘AA’ are allowed to participate in the scheme.



https://www.rediff.com/business/report/ ... 191015.htm

Once liquidity/credit is available, consumption has to pickup. Today heard Amit Shahji refer to a decent Kharif crop putting 16 lakh crores in people's pocket, let's see what growth that leads to...

[hanumadu]

Folks can diss AB all they want, but he echoes exactly what Susu has also been saying for years, demands is low and GOI measures need to fix that in a hurry...

AB wan'ts to increase taxation, Susu wan'ts to abolish income tax.

[Cain Marko]

Folks can diss AB all they want, but he echoes exactly what Susu has also been saying for years, demands is low and GOI measures need to fix that in a hurry...

AB wan'ts to increase taxation, Susu wan'ts to abolish income tax.

Yeah being lefty righty, that makes some sense. What doesn't is that they both agree it's a demand problem.

[hanumadu]

But that is the consensus among most people about the Indian economy right now. Isn't it one of the basic characteristic of a slow down or recession?

[nandakumar]

https://swarajyamag.com/economy/indias- ... t-it-wrong
India’s Problem Isn’t Demand: How Most Economists Have Got It Wrong

The recent slowdown in the Indian economy has been attributed to the slackening of demand by almost all economists. There’s near unanimity on the above diagnosis within the spectrum of neo-Keynesian economists – from Jayati Ghosh on the Left to Subramanian Swamy on the Right.
Of course, depending on where they lie within the above spectrum, their solutions could range from the “near Marxist” recommendation to triple Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) allocations, to an “understandable, but nevertheless incorrect” recommendation to abolish income tax for individuals. All this as a mechanism for boosting demand, which happens to be the apparent villain in this growth slowdown in India.

Let’s make just a couple of points before we turn to our main theme. First, I am in complete favour of abolishing income taxes, and a whole lot of other taxes as well. But let’s not use the pretext of weak demand. It should be done from the purely libertarian ethos of individual liberty and limited government. All that the current proposal would do is transfer the burden of corporations from income tax to inflation tax – which is a much more nefarious form of taxation.

Imagine an island where people are living in primitive conditions producing barely subsistence levels of food. Is there a demand for cars and cellphones on that island? Of course, since none of them own one, why not just give it to them in order to stimulate demand? Okay, forget cars or cellphones, why not give them clothing and soap? The point is that giving it would be charity and not business – and hence unsustainable.

Whether the cost of the charity is borne by the producing business or the government doesn’t alter the futility or immorality of such an action. In fact, government funding is far more insidious, as all sorts of 'pork' gets bundled with such a stimulus and the costs are unevenly borne by the people at the bottom of the pyramid – as is the case with all inflationary actions of the government. It really takes a massive leap of faith to believe that demand comes from a printing press.

The real solution for us is to allow interest rates to find their natural levels where it would hasten the liquidation of the malinvestments made so far. Let the chips fall where they may and allow markets to direct the resources to where they are most needed.
That is the only way to build a sustainable and robust economic growth model. And the beauty of this free market model, as history has repeatedly shown, is that this automatically ensures growth with equity. It’s only when the government steps in to ensure equity that we have situations where 1 per cent of people corner all the gains.
As far as the government/finance ministry is concerned, they should focus on balancing the budgets by dramatically downsizing their expenditures and deregulating the rather onerous structures that we have created for ourselves.
The growth mantra for the government is straightforward – downsize, deregulate and follow sound money policies. I think it’s a fair to assume that we are not doing any of the three. In fact, I would bet that we are going to get the exact opposite on all the three counts.

The author says, " The real solution for us is to allow interest rates to find their natural levels where it would hasten the liquidation of the malinvestments made so far. Let the chips fall where they may and allow markets to direct the resources to where they are most needed."
But he does not explain how the interest rate (I am assuming he is referring to sovereign borrowing, as it can be nobody's case that private borrowing is through administered interest rates) is not market driven.
Is it that the present levels of CRR and SLR are excessively high? Or is he contending that they shouldn't exist at all? Is he saying that GSec auctions impose a heavy burden on Primary Dealers who are forced to pick up these securities at interest rates that are arbitrarily determined by the RBI? Above all I am more intrigued by a more fundamental proposition. Is it the author's contention that the State/RBI determined interest rates as at present, are on the higher or lower side of a free market driven rate?

[kit]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 606116.cms

[Kashi]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 606116.cms

Now that's distressing news. I am surprised though, how is it that India with relatively low food inflation slips on the hunger index, while Pakistan with high food inflation and shortage of essentials climbs up. What is the methodology used here?

[Kati]

I would take these international ratings / rankings (from UN / WGO / FAO, etc.) with a pinch of salt.
They do not have any mandate to go and collect first hand data from any country. They must use the data provided by the individual countries on their own, and that's where the trick is. .... Countries like China, Pak and NoKo, with no or little internal checks and balances, mix plenty of water in the milk to make it look full. Hence be careful about their data.
....
For ten long years Pak said that they didn't know where OBL was....

[Kaivalya]

https://www.prsindia.org/content/examin ... sets-india

Sept 2018

Things to note :


A lot of the loans currently classified as NPAs originated in the mid-2000s, at a time when the economy was booming and business outlook was very positive. Large corporations were granted loans for projects based on extrapolation of their recent growth and performance.

Please see associated report included :

Figure 10, Figure 11a, Figure 11b

The net loans ( to all segments, stressed or normal) have been falling from 2007 because their asset to return ratios were not good. By the time R3 stopped evergreening it was too late as far as accumulated bad assets/npas.

Only thing we can do is recover quickly like we are doing pmc bank now. I am hearing that EOW is selling all the culprits assets and return public money. Just for a sense of magnitude total npas anecdotally as 16l crore. New capital injection by the FM is 3.4l crore. We can imagine how much looting has happened


In the RBI report with a specific question : Did stringent newer laws stifle economic growth? The answer was using data from 2013 time frame to show credit growth was flatlining. The truth seems to be credit growth was declining rapidly from 2008 timeframes as there was no money to be lent. Statistics and goddamn lies

Note to admin : I need ability to add png/jpeg for graphics attachment please

[Katare]

I would take these international ratings / rankings (from UN / WGO / FAO, etc.) with a pinch of salt.
They do not have any mandate to go and collect first hand data from any country. They must use the data provided by the individual countries on their own, and that's where the trick is. .... Countries like China, Pak and NoKo, with no or little internal checks and balances, mix plenty of water in the milk to make it look full. Hence be careful about their data.
....
For ten long years Pak said that they didn't know where OBL was....

There is truth in what you stated but it can only partially explain the situation. Indian problem of low weight and height is not new and by no means can be denied.

I believe along with many more that root cause of it lies in the cultural and religious traditions not in economic, poverty or political situation.

[Suraj]

But that is the consensus among most people about the Indian economy right now. Isn't it one of the basic characteristic of a slow down or recession?

It's a slowdown in the sense that it doesn't fulfill the criteria to be termed a recession. It's also not really cyclical, and arguably not even structural, but really a question of the pace at which the economy can adapt to changes.

There has been a concerted push - several things at once even - to formalize business activity. This ranges from formalizing the definition and characterization of credit quality, to conducting business formally rather than informally, to a smoother indirect tax regime, to a modern bankruptcy code. It's not really a case of more big ticket reforms needed - the economy hasn't quite kept up with the reforms so far. The symptoms that lead me to consider this is that there's no cyclical evidence - several pieces of data continue to maintain a countertrend - CV production, steel, electricity, and other core sector activities, employment growth depending on whom you ask is up/down, and electoral support has been overwhelmingly positive so far.

Part of this is also in the government's hands - certain things needed finetuning. For example, the GST slabs were progressively improved. There's often criticism as to why GoI didn't fix it at the outset, but it misunderstands what that process targeted initially. It didn't focus on companies at all. It focused on getting states on board. Once they were on board and it was up and running, several rounds of updates focused on states and on the feedback from businesses. Similarly, the IBC law was amended based on real world operational feedback. It's not possible to get these perfectly right by committee discussion - real world feedback provides the best input. For example, China didn't implement SEZs all at once - they first implemented 3-4, tinkered and learned what worked and didn't, then expanded the working model. What's really important is not getting something perfectly right at the beginning - it almost never will happen - but being very proactive about learning and improving something.

Beyond the government, the entire economy and business community too takes time to adapt to the new reality. Banks still disburse funds by patronage, often making disbursement decisions that are completely absurd, like the PMC case. It takes years to restructure credit and business processes to be more formalized. Should these reforms have been done slower ? In my opinion, no, but the oversight could have been more comprehensive. A little too much confidence was reposed in the ability of banks and businesses to handle these changes well themselves, but at least the banks have been poor at this.

Since IMHO the issue is neither cyclical nor structural, it's fundamentally about the government to ensure that the economy reorients itself to the new formalized and procedural rule-of-law system as fast as possible.

[vijayk]

https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 560_1.html
A half-trillion dollar shift away from China
There is an opportunity for countries to grab exports worth $450 billion that India cannot afford to miss

These days rarely a day passes without trade wars making the headlines. And yet, despite more than a year of duties on US merchandise imports from China, and a synchronised global slowdown nearly universally blamed on the trade wars, the headline trade numbers do not seem to have changed much.
To investigate this, Credit Suisse surveyed a hundred global companies (with a combined $1 trillion in annual sales), and pored over trade statistics as well as longer-term economic trends. Beyond the obvious policy uncertainty (negotiations are still ongoing), we found two main reasons why there ...

[SRajesh]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/vid ... 632757.cms
10yrs of 'remote control' government plus 40 odd yrs of 'central disasters' plus wars/famine/etc. regardless of 8% growth will probably need another decade and half for complete overhaul??? regardless of centre-right government or centre-left for that matter
Any non-JNU. non-liberandu. non-'Uncle Tom' type economist comment please

[disha]

A criticism against GST is definitely a vote for corruption. Corruption emanating from what I call Babucracy.

I agree, GST did kill one segment of Indian economy. Inflation.

For the first time in history there was no Nirupa Roy'esque angst against 'Mehengai ka zamana' (Days of Inflation) during general elections.

Here is one factoid: https://www.livemint.com/industry/banki ... 12954.html

GST lowered number of tax forms to 12 from 495: Official

GST has also helped reduce the logistics cost for businesses: Rajeev Ranjan, special secretary in the GST Council

Imagine for a moment where any one of the 495 forms incorrectly filled will result in delays at various points.

Goods and Services Tax (GST) rollout has cut down the number of forms to be filed by businesses to just 12 from 495 under as many as 17 central and state laws in the pre-GST era, said an official....

“In pre-GST era, trucks used to cover about 225 kilometers a day and now it is 300-325 kilometers," said Ranjan, adding that GST has ensured that there is no need to have a fragmented market.

Hence bringing in GST to talk about 'slowdown' in economy is non-sequitur.

[Vips]

India’s forex reserves at new life-time high of $439.712 billion.

The forex kitty continued to climb north, swelling by USD 1.879 billion to a new life-time high of USD 439.712 billion, in the week to October 11, the Reserve Bank said on Friday.

The forex reserves had increased by a higher USD 4.24 billion to a new high of USD 437.83 billion in the previous reporting week.

[Uttam]

India’s forex reserves at new life-time high of $439.712 billion.

There are two possible reasons for this:
1) there is a lot of USD inflow
2) there is a lot upward pressure on INR and RBI is buying USD to prevent INR from rising.

Which one is it or it is a combination of the two, I’m not sure! Would like to see more data. Either way this is good news. Seems like economy is improving.

[Suraj]

DIPP FDI statistics are only available for April-June but indicate a 28% jump in FDI for Q1 to $17 billion . Similarly, services exports have increased from approximately $16-17 billion a month to $19 billion a month now.

Several economic parameters have remained robust through this ‘slowdown’ which is why I hesitate to call it a broad based economic slowdown because there isn’t data to say so - several core sector and other parameters have continued to build momentum for the last 2-3 years now.

[hanumadu]

^^If this slow down is not cyclical, how come economies around the world are experiencing a slow down at the same time and our economy seems to match them? Even our exports are showing a decline.

[Kaivalya]

Hanumaduji,

+1 Surajji and dishajis comments.

Economy is slowing down a bit in some sectors but cannot be explained by a GDP number alone. Simple explanations like gst,demo, structure etc did not cause the economic growth in some selective sectors to slowdown. Auto industry could be cyclical - but I cannot find good data to support it one way for another

Here are 10 graphs that compare UPA vs NDA
https://m.economictimes.com/markets/sto ... 795143.cms

1. GDP per capita is higher
2. Food production higher with inflation and agriculture wage growth are low
3. Amazing national highway growth
4. Excellent rural growth spending
5. Awesome banking inclusion

For a macro sector wise breakdown:

https://pasteboard.co/ICScq0j.png

As you can see auto industry and credit to deposit ratio have the prolonged reds. FM has worked on credit stuff as that can affect all big ticket items...we have to see a couple more quarters to see what is going on in the auto sector as credit availability could be affecting passenger vehicle /commercial vehicle sales. When 2 wheeler sales are back, then we know we are getting back in the groove.

From a consumption point of view, corporate demand has been given stimulus, kharif crop, msme stimulus etc have been the forces at play. There is nothing that suggests public consumption is going down.

Summary : We are not in an alarming situation- we have to be cautious and be ready to react quickly as the FM has said

[Suraj]

Like I posted above, services exports are at all time high monthly earnings right now. 2018-19 was the highest year of FDI inflows ever. CV sales recovered from the collapse starting 2011-12, in 2018-19 , as A_Gupta's data in this post shows. FDI data shows an interesting trend in that most of the growth is in reinvested earning, not in fresh FDI inflow. However, I'm interested in DIPP Q2 data because the corporate tax cut should spur fresh investments. A near 30% jump in USD terms in Q1 FDI inflows is a significant rise.

There may be top line GDP data slowdown, but there isn't sufficient indicators all across the board that suggest a structural slowdown - a lot of very important datapoints (FDI, services trade, steel output, CV sales growth, electricity) are continuing to maintain their momentum. However we don't yet have even 1 month of data since the corp tax cut or latest rate cut, so it's hard to tell where the current momentum is, because we're estimating the situation from a combination of 1 and 3 month old data.

[vijayk]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-sees ... 1571572741
India Sees Opportunity in Trade Fight: Luring Big Companies From China

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is trying to tempt cellphone makers, manufacturers with lower taxes and less red tape as economy slows down
By Eric Bellman and Rajesh Roy


India is making a push to get Apple Inc. and other big brands to switch production there as the risks of manufacturing in China rise along with trade tensions.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to transform the country’s image as a difficult place to do business, promising a more predictable and open regulatory regime, a simpler corporate tax structure and incentives for targeted industries.

Prasanna Viswanathan
@prasannavishy


India makes a big push to get Apple Inc. and other big brands to switch production.
Close to $72 billion in imports to the U.S. shifted away from China in recent years. After Vietnam, India is the second-largest destination.

Eric Bellman
@EricBellmanWSJ

This made-in-India iPhone XR just hit the shelves, showing @narendramodi’s attempts to woo brands looking for alternatives to China may be working. His roadmap to rebrand India as the next great smartphone manufacturing hub revealed here.

wsj.com/articles/india-sees-opportunity-in-trade-fight-luring-big-companies-from-china-11571572741

[vijayk]

https://www.ft.com/content/4d8285a2-eff ... 67d8281195
Samsung’s departure is new blow to Chinese manufacturing
But other smartphone makers will find it hard to follow South Korean giant

At the end of last month, the South Korean electronics group, quietly closed its last remaining Chinese smartphone plant in Huizhou, Guangdong, handing out gifts of its flagship Galaxy S10 and Note 10 phones, along with some cash bonuses, to long-serving employees. The departure of the world’s largest smartphone maker was the latest blow to China’s long dominance in high-end manufacturing, as wages rise and the threat of US tariffs weighs on other companies, such as Apple.As recently as two years ago, the Huizhou plant’s 6,000 workers were still making 63m phones, or 17 per cent of Samsung’s global production, according to analysts. But its closure, alongside plants in Tianjin and Shenzhen, is the culmination of a decade-long strategy by Samsung to “diversify the risks of its manufacturing bases”, according an executive at the South Korean company. Lured by cheaper labour costs and huge tax breaks, Samsung built its first smartphone plant in Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province in 2008 for $2.5bn and another in the country’s Thai Nguyen province in 2013 for $5bn.

[Peregrine]

PM Modi meets members of JP Morgan International Council - PTI

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday held meeting with high profile members of JP Morgan International Council and informed them about efforts being made to make India US $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.

The members of the council included former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, former US secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger and Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata.

Very good interaction with the JP Morgan International Council, an illustrious gathering of top policy makers, thinkers, statesmen and stateswomen, captains of industry, innovators among others. Spoke about India's efforts in health, education and becoming a US $5 Trillion economy," the Prime Minister said in a tweet.

Modi also said he had great discussions with Kissinger, Blair and Rice, and talked about wide ranging global issue.

"Great discussions with former British PM Tony Blair. He has made a long lasting contribution to his nation and has insightful views on a wide range of global issues...excellent discussions with these global thought leaders," he said.

In another tweet, PM Modi mentioned he is "Glad to have met Dr Henry Kissinger. He has made pioneering contributions to international politics and diplomacy."

Cheers

[vimal]

PM Modi meets members of JP Morgan International Council - PTI

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday held meeting with high profile members of JP Morgan International Council and informed them about efforts being made to make India US $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.

The members of the council included former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, former US secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger and Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata.

"Great discussions with former British PM Tony Blair. He has made a long lasting contribution to his nation and has insightful views on a wide range of global issues...excellent discussions with these global thought leaders," he said.

In another tweet, PM Modi mentioned he is "Glad to have met Dr Henry Kissinger. He has made pioneering contributions to international politics and diplomacy."

Cheers

Really? Kissinger?
And the rest of the war mogering cabal of Rice et el..

[ArjunPandit]

^^kehne main kya jata hai...