An Indian rocket successfully sent into orbit five satellites, an event that Prime Minister Narendra Modi described as “global endorsement of India’s space capability”. “I believe technology is fundamentally connected to common man. It can transform his life,” said Modi, who witnessed the successful launch at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. “I feel specially privileged to witness this event in person,” said Modi who applauded as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C23 (PSLV-C23) - standing around 44.4 metres tall and weighing around 230 tonnes - tore into the bright morning skies with orange flames fiercely burning at its tail. The rocket’s main luggage is the 714-kg French earth observation satellite SPOT-7. Piggybacking on it are the four small satellites viz: 14-kg AISAT of Germany; NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) and NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) from Canada each weighing 15 kg; and the 7-kg VELOX-1 of Singapore. Modi described it as “global endorsement of India’s space capability” inspired by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s vision. “We have sent a mission to the Moon and another is on its way to Mars.” He said that the benefits of space technology should be shared with those who do not have the same and cited the provision of telemedicine technology to Afghanistan and Africa. The rocket took off exactly at 9.52 a.m.Modi, Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, union Minister Venkaiah Naidu, space scientists and other invitees at Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) rocket mission control room intently watched the rocket’s upward flight with one-way ticket. The five satellites were launched under commercial arrangements that Antrix Corporation - ISRO’s commercial arm - has entered into with the respective foreign agencies. The around 20-minute launch mission finally turned out to be a grand success. Around 18 minutes into the flight, the rocket first ejected its heaviest luggage - SPOT-7. India had launched another French satellite SPOT-6 in 2012. The latest in the SPOT family of satellites is the SPOT-7. The ejection of SPOT-7 was followed by AISAT (German), NLS7.1, NLS7.2 (both from Canada) and VELOX-1 (Singapore). Starting from 1999, India has launched 35 foreign satellites till date using its PSLV rocket. The successful launch of five satellites on June 30 would take the tally to 40. India began its space journey in 1975 with the launch of Aryabhatta using a Russian rocket and till date, it has completed over 100 space missions including missions to moon and mars.
Business confidence up in Modi regime: CII
Business confidence is up after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new government took office, according to the Business Outlook Survey by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). “Indicating a sharp improvement in investors’ sentiments amidst heightened expectations that the new government means business along with some improvement in basic macro indicators, the CII Business Confidence Index (CII-BCI) for the April-June 2014 quarter has moved up to 53.7 from 49.9 in the previous quarter,” the CII said in New Delhi on June 29. The number 50 is the dividing line on the survey’s index between positive and weak business confidence. The survey, based on responses from over 150 industry members distributed over large, medium, small and micro firms, and almost equally between manufacturing and services, exuded confidence about prospects of economic growth based on decline in price-rise and deficits, export recovery, buoyant foreign capital inflows and strengthening of the rupee. “We expect the index to gather momentum in the coming days, riding on improved sentiments and business confidence,” CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee said. According to the survey, while growth is expected to pick up from 4.7 percent in 2013-14 to between 5.5 and 6 percent in fiscal 2015, wholesale price inflation is expected to moderate to between 5.5 and 6 percent in the current fiscal. CII cited economic uncertainty, low GDP growth and high inflation as its priority concerns, highlighting the need for stepping up efforts to improve business sentiments and removing supply bottlenecks. “We are pleased to see that the new government is already working in this direction and it is only a matter of time when fundamentals of the economy will start falling in place,” Banerjee said. Reflecting upward trends in demand, the survey found most businesses have started experiencing a rise in capacity utilisation, which augurs well for a turnaround of the economy. As much as 56 percent of respondents expected sales and new orders to increase in the first quarter of 2014-15, which is much higher than the previous quarter where only 35 percent of respondents expected a rise in sales.
India’s forex reserves rise by $1.38 billion
India’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves rose by $1.38 billion to $314.92 billion for the week ended on June 20, led by a sharp jump in overseas currency assets, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed. The reserves had increased by $950.9 million to $313.53 billion for the week ended on June 13. According to the RBI’s weekly statistical supplement, foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves, jumped by $1.37 billion to $287.96 billion. The foreign currency assets had grown by $958.5 million to $286.58 billion for the week ended June 13. The RBI said that the foreign currency assets, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US currencies held in reserve such as the pound sterling, euro and yen. India’s reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) grew by $1.5 million to $1.71 billion. The value of special drawing rights (SDRs) rose by $4.1 million to $4.45 billion. However, the value of gold reserves remained unchanged at $20.79 billion.
Indian export may touch $360 bn this year
The Federation of Indian Export Organisations has struck a positive note on India’s export front, projecting that exports could touch $360 billion this fiscal, going by trends in the current quarter. Last fiscal, India’s total exports were about $312 billion. Walter D’Souza, regional chairman of FIEO, said that last month exports touched $28 billion, which was 12.4 per cent higher than the corresponding month of last fiscal. “It seems the beginning of a growth backed by better global trade forecast of 4.7 per cent in 2014 and 5.3 per cent in 2015,” he told Business Line on the sidelines of an interactive meeting on customs and central excise in New Delhi. Sectors such as readymade garments, organic and inorganic chemicals, engineering goods and petroleum products drove the export growth. He said the trade deficit continued to contract on a year-on-year basis for the 11th consecutive month in May 2014. The trade deficit during April-May this year was estimated at $21.31 billion, which is lower that the deficit of $37.04 billion during the corresponding months of last fiscal. D’Souza felt that through aggressive marketing and cost efficiencies India’s exports could reach the targeted $750 billion by 2018-19.
Singapore keen to work on urban development with India
Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam will be in New Delhi next week for discussions with the new Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on scaling up bilateral cooperation. Shanmugam will discuss two-way cooperation in various sectors, including urban development, said Singapore High Commissioner Thuan Kuan. Thuan met Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu on June 28 and conveyed his country’s keenness to collaborate
on the sector. Singapore is the second largest foreign investor in India. “India is now like a fast train and everyone wants to get in,” Thuan remarked during the meeting with Naidu. Singapore has plans to invest in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. Singapore is also India’s largest trading partner amongst the ASEAN countries and serves as India’s gateway to ASEAN and East Asia. The foreign minister’s visit is taking place at time when India is reviewing all free trade agreements it has signed. In 2005, India and Singapore had signed a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA). Also, next year, Singapore and India will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations. “A very important milestone would be the upcoming 50th anniversary. Our presidents are going to visit each other,” Shanmugam had said after co-chairing the third Joint Ministerial Committee meeting with then External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid last October. Khurshid had told IANS that India was drawing up a “fairly elaborate and extensive programme of events” that would be built up to 2015 to tell the world “what an important relationship is this”.
Retail sector in India to jump five fold to $200 bn, says Boston Consultancy Group
The organised retail sector will grow five fold in the next five-seven years and touch the $ 200 billion mark, showed a Boston Consultancy Group report. “The organised retail sector in the country would grow from the current $ 40 billion to $ 200 billion in the next five seven years,” report released at the CII national retail-FMCG summit today stated. “We find transformation in FMCG and retail is critical to the profitable growth of the sector,” BCG senior partner and director, Abheek Singhi said. The study covered 45 companies in the country. “We found that close to 57 per cent believe the world is going more uncertain going forward, while 71 per cent of executives believe they do have idea but they lack defined action plan,” he said. “Successful models of retail namely food & grocery sectors to footwear to lifestyle products have done exceedingly well on the Indian stock markets and given very high returns to the investor,” said investor and Rare Enterprises founder Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in his keynote address.
Govt mulls single-window system to boost steel, mining sectors
To boost sagging sentiments in steel and mining sectors, the government on June 24 began the process of setting up single-window mechanism to fast-track clearances for various projects and create special mining zones to ensure raw material security for existing and upcoming steel plants in the country. In the course of a three-hour-long meeting steel and mines minister Narendra Singh Tomar, coal minister Piyush Goyal and environment minister Prakash Javadekar said that there is a pressing need for a single window clearance system and agreed to engage more stakeholders to take the process forward. While there was a general agreement that such a system “cannot happen overnight as rules for different departments are not the same,” but creating such a dispensation also cannot be an endless process. Currently, 44 coal projects, both opencast and underground, and at least six steel projects are awaiting environmental and forest clearances. Considering that over Rs 4.4 lakh crore of investments are in the pipeline in the steel sector in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, such a mechanism is likely to translate these investments on the ground. In response to the contention of steel ministry officials that the existing plants perpetually complain about raw material insecurity, Goyal told the meeting that some blocks can be auctioned specifically for the steel companies, while steel PSUs can continue to enjoy allocations through the government dispensation route. Steel ministry officials had, in a presentation to Tomar last month, contended that the sector has been discriminated in allocation of captive coal mines despite the companies completing their end-use plants and investing heavily in mining. They told the minister that 44 captive coal blocks pertaining to steel and iron projects have been cancelled notwithstanding their investments made. “The three ministers said that like the special economic zones, certain big mineral bearing areas can be demarcated as special mining zones exclusively for meeting the demands of the iron-ore starved plants,” a source said. The erstwhile UPA government had set a target of producing 300 million tonnes steel per year by 2025 for which the nation would require nearly 350 MT of iron ore. However, the steel ministry officials could not confirm whether such mining zones would be entitled to financial sops as enjoyed by the SEZs. Javadekar said that National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) will be reconstituted soon and matters pending for clearance of the NBWL will be thereafter be disposed off expeditiously. Goyal, meanwhile, is learnt to have been firm in ruling out de-merger of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) from Coal India and making it a stand-alone company, as demanded by the steel ministry last year. The 12th Five Year Plan working group had suggested de-merging BCCL from Coal India to service the raw material needs of the steel companies steel industry which spends heavily in sourcing the fuel from abroad.
India outperforms global markets in H1CY14
Propelled by the gush of liquidity in hope that of a stable, reform-oriented government would help revive economic growth has made the India the best performing equity market across the globe year-to-date (YTD) in the first of calendar year 2014. Registering their best half yearly gain in five years, the S&P BSE Sensex and the CNX Nifty have moved up nearly 19% each in first half (January-June) of calendar year 2014 (CY14), the highest rise since 2009 (CY09) when they had gained 21% in the second half of CY09. Incidentally, the indices had recorded 50% rise in first of 2009, after the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) government was voted back into power for the second term. “The outperformance has been in a hope of a better tomorrow. Even post elections, whatever noises have come from New Delhi have been more or less positive,” suggests Ambareesh Baliga, managing partner (global wealth management), Edelweiss Financial Services. Thus far in CY14, foreign investors have pumped in over $10 billion (Rs 60,000 crore) on hopes that the new government will take steps to revive the economy amid a favourable interest rate scenario. Investors flocked to cyclical and policy-driven counters. As a result, on YTD basis, the S&P BSE Capital Goods and S&P BSE Consumer Durables indices gained over 50% each, while realty, banks, power, metal, auto and oil and gas indices moved up between 24 - 45%. However, healthcare, information technology (IT) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector took a backseat and underperformed the market by gaining less than 11%. The euphoria trickled down to the mid-and small-cap segment as well with nearly 100 stocks from 780 counters that comprise BSE 500, mid-cap and small-cap index have seen price appreciation by over 100%, while 211 stocks gained between 50-100% during the first half of current year.
