Business Archives - Page 7 of 8

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella met at Microsoft Future Decoded CEO Summit and shared their vision for India.

Mr. Ambani on Trump’s visit

He said as they were speaking, Donald Trump had arrived in Ahmedabad and the India he would see in 2020 was different from the India Jim Carter saw or Bill Clinton saw or even Barack Obama saw. He further said that people had mobile phones and the mobile network in India was at par with anybody else in the world.

Mr. Nadella said about Microsoft

India-born Satya Nadella outlined the goal of Microsoft’s products in India. The key message was India’s potential and the focus of Microsoft for next decade. How every organization in India rides the new wave of intelligent cloud and intelligent edge. He further said that their mission was to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Mr. Ambani praised Nadella

He said that every Indian was proud of Nadella. He further said that what he admired about Nadella and what he learned was that Nadella’s leadership style was ability to rely on partnerships and build trust and relationships.

Mr. Ambani also talked about digital transactions in writing country’s growth story. He recalled how his father started Reliance and how RIL moved from a startup to a big business. He said that every small business could become Dhirubhai Ambani or Bill Gates.

Source: https://bit.ly/2PpgC4S

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Business News & Politics

Donald Trump Said That There Will Be A Big Deal With India

HT News February 19, 2020

The US President Donald Trumpclearly indicated that a big trade deal with India might not be on the cards during his visit. He said that he was saving the big deal with India for later and that he didn’t know if it (the deal) would be done before the presidential election in November.

US trade deal with India

Donald Trump is visiting with the first lady of the US on February 24 and 25. But the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer might not accompany the Trumps during their visit. He’s the point-person for trade negotiations with India but the US officials hadn’t ruled out his travel to India.

Trump said that they weren’t treated well by India but he praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he was looking forward to visit to India. He also said that he happened to like Prime Minister Modi a lot.

Trump said that Modi told him that they would have seven million people between the airport and the event. Also, he said that he was excited about the stadium that was the largest in the world. He further said that it was going to be very exciting and hoped that everyone enjoyed that a lot.

President Trump said that they would have a big deal with India but he didn’t know if the deal would be done before the election. But he was certain that there would be a deal with India. He was speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Tuesday.

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Business News & Politics

50 Lakh Crore Earmarked For Development Of Railway Stations On PPP Model

HT News February 17, 2020

Ministry of Railways is working overtime for beautification of railway stations. The ministry wants to make New Delhi Railway Station, a world class station. It would be developed like an airport, where design would attract the visitors. There will be separate exit points for convenience of passengers. Also, there would be elevated access roads on the lines of airport.

PPP model would be used

According to sources, Northern Railway and Railway Land Development Authority is contemplating completing the project on Public Private Partnership model. This project can take a minimum of 4 years in completing.

50 stations are up for beautification

According to a news published on 7th February in Economic Times, the government has set a target of beautifying 50 railway stations with a budget of 50,000 crore. Companies like Tata Realty, Adani and Essel Group have displayed their interest in this project.

Bids for 4 stations would be invited in 2021

In 2019, the government said that it was working to attract private investment in railways. And that it had set a target of spending 50,00,000 crore on infrastructure of railway. The government can invite bids for 4 stations in 2021.

1500 crore for CST

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST)will get 1500 crore for beautification. And other stations would get a minimum of 250 crore for development and beautification. But New Delhi Railway Station would get 6500 crore for development.

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Business

Udaan Becomes The Fourth-Valued Startup After Paytm, OYO And Byju’s

HT News February 12, 2020

Bengaluru based online B2B e-commerce marketplace Udaan that is a little over three years old has become the fourth-highest valued startup in India. A recent valuation report filed by the firm on September 23, 2019 shows that the worth of the firm is $7.5 billion or Rs. 53,365.45 crore.

Valuation report of Udaan

The report reads that the e-commerce company would reduce its losses to Rs. 375 crore in FY21. Also, that it would register a profit of Rs. 3,082 crore before tax in FY22. Following the report, the company convened a meeting to pass a special resolution to approve allotment of 4,02,641 Series E Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) to its Singapore-based holding entity Trustroot Internet PTE.

History of Udaan

This development came when the company posted a loss of Rs. 780 crore during FY19 at a revenue of Rs. 46 crore. Founded by former Flipkart executives Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar and Vaibhav Gupta, it works as a platform where retailers can connect to wholesalers and traders. It is a horizontal marketplace that provides a wide range of goods from electronics to apparel and from grocery to fresh produce.

It also provides logistics service along with working capital loan to sellers on the platform. Udaan boasts of 20,000 sellers and 10 lack retailers from 900 cities and towns across country. It offers more than 15 lakh products that includes brands like SanDisk, Karbonn, boat and HP.

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Business

Anil Ambani Says His Net Worth Is Zero

HT News February 8, 2020

Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani was asked to pay USD 100 million by a UK court. He was given six-week time to make the payment. The order was passed for three Chinese banks that lent USD 680 million to Anil Ambani in loan.

UK court order for Ambani

Judge Waksman read out the order for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd Mumbai Branch, China Development Bank and Exim Bank of China. The banks welcomed the order saying that it was a straightforward debt claim to recover outstand loans to RCom in good faith. They said that Anil Ambani had given a personal guarantee but he refused to honor that guarantee.

Anil Ambani denied guarantee

Ambani, 60, denied giving any such guarantee to Chinese banks that were forced to take the legal action. Also, he argued that his net worth was nearly zero and that his family won’t help in repaying the debt. But the court refused to accept his claim.

The judge said that Ambani failed to satisfy him with his excuses. But the Reliance Group indicated that the company would appeal against the ruling. It said that Ambani was reviewing the court order and would seek legal remedies according to the order.

The court dismissed Ambani’s request

The court asked whether Anil Ambani had filed bankruptcy in India. In response, his counsels said no. But they made a reference to Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) that had just came into play. The court also made numerous references to instances when Ambani family stepped out to bail Anil Ambani and his family out.

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Banking Business

Foreign Analysts Fear Revision Of Rates By RBI In 2020

HT News February 4, 2020

Analyst said on Monday that RBI could hike rates this year because of possible inflationary impact the economy would have while trying to meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.5% for FY2020-21.

The analysts pointed towards the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman discussing disinvestment where the government under-performed to achieve the 3.8% fiscal deficit target in FY2019-20.

Analysis of growth

The government wants to push the growth but with the help of a clause that allows the government to stretch its commitments under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act by 0.5%. But it would show that the government missed the target for the third consecutive year.

Analysts of foreign brokerage Bank of America welcomed the government’s stand while flagging risks to the target. They see a 0.30% if GDP upside risk to the fiscal deficit target because of high disinvestment assumption of Rs. 2.10 lakh crore in FY21 that is almost three times of FY20’s Rs. 65,000 crore.

Goldman Sachs analysis

The analysts said that the achievement of government relies on privatization initiatives. They also said that if the estimates of revenue collections don’t materialize, the government would have to resort to expenditure cuts again.

They further said that any rise in fiscal deficit would be accompanied by a spike in inflation but it is already beyond the comfort level of RBI. The analysts said that it is more likely that RBI could shift its monetary policy from neutral to accommodative in the weekly review and it is likely to hike the rates in 2020 as well.

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Business

Pay By Reliance Jio UPI-Powered Payment Process

HT News January 21, 2020

Reliance Jioannounced its entrance in the UPI-powered payment space. It offered this facility to over 370 million customers through an app update. Available only to selected customers in the beginning, Jio’s UPI payment facility will soon be available for others.

Reliance Jio’s UPI-payment facility

Mukesh Ambani led telecom company is eying into the flourishing market of UPI-payment. Presently this market is ruled by Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm and several others. Jio would be the first in the telecom companies and second in payment banks to start UPI-payment service. It already has a wallet service called JioMoney. The UPI option has been integrated in the main app MyJio and it works similar to others.

Users will be asked to sign up to get virtual payment address (VPA) with UPI handle @Jio. They would require providing their mobile numbers and debit card numbers attached with their bank accounts for generating UPI PIN. It is anticipated that the new service would be rolled out with the brand name JioPay. Presently Reliance provides autopay facility under JioPay. Under this service, the users are allowed to recharge their phone numbers five-days in advance before their recharges are due or after exhausting 90% data.

WhatsApp working on UPI-payment

The Facebook-owned instant messenger has been in talks with the government to launch its payment service but it is yet to receive a nod from NPCI. There is uncertainty over data localization and other regulatory hurdles. UPI-payment space has grown 3x in 2019 and the battle is expected to further intensify with entrance of new players including Jio and WhatsApp.

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Business

IMF World Economic Outlook: India Growth Would Impact Global Growth Story

HT News January 21, 2020

Gita Gopinath of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that India would have an effect on the global growth story. She further maintained that India had already pushed the global forecast down by 0.1%. She’s the Chief Economist of the IMF.

India projection of IMF

The world body has slashed India’s growth forecast in its World Economic Outlook released in Davos, Switzerland. It sees India’s growth to remain at 4.8% but it is 1.3% lesser in three months. Ms. Gopinath said that IMF revised the global growth down for 2019 by 0.1% considering the size of the Indian economy and its impact on global growth. She further said that the vast majority of the downgrade was from India.

Issue with India growth

Ms. Gopinath minced no words in highlighting the issue ailing the Indian economy. She said that the biggest issue was in the financial space. She indicated the stress in the financial sector, especially in non-bank financial corporations. The weakness in credit growth is visible and there appears to be an increased risk in lending in the markets. Also, there had been a weakness in rural income growth. But there was the hope of recovering GDP by up to 6.5% by 2021. The monetary and fiscal stimulus and subdued oil prices could support growth.

IMF on social unrest

The IMF report highlighted the link between social unrest and the erosion of trust in established institutions. Also, there was a lack of representation in governance structures. Ms. Gopinath said that nations should protect the vulnerable so that they weren’t left behind in the growth story.

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Business

Jeff Bezos Announced $1 Billion Investment In India By Amazon

HT News January 16, 2020

Amazon chief JeffBezos announced $1 billion (£770m) investment in India. He said that the investment would be used to digitalize small and medium businesses. It would help the businesses to operate and sell their products online.

Jeff Bezos in India

He was in New Delhi to attend a company event where he said that the 21st Century was going to be the Indian century. He was on his three-day visit to India. While addressing the audience at the event, he said that democracy had dynamism, energy and growth.

Mr. Bezos said that Amazon would export goods worth $10 billion from India by 2025. Also, he underlined that the online retail giant had already committed its $5.5 billion investment in the country.

Jeff Bezos met with protests

Thousands of small traders from 300 cities registered their protest against Amazon that they alleged to have a negative impact on their businesses in the local market. They said that the retail giant was driving them out of market by offering lucrative discount offers and promoting a few big sellers on his platform.

Ecommerce market in India

India’s ecommerce market is presently dominated by Amazon and Flipkart that is owned by US retail giant Walmart. Also, Mukesh Ambani is preparing to launch his ecommerce website in competition to Amazon and Flipkart. Mukesh Ambani’s Jiomart would take advantage of its large mobile phone consumer base to expand its reach.

Source: https://bit.ly/2FSCn7W

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Business International News & Politics

The US-China Took First Concrete Step Towards Defusing Trade War

HT News January 16, 2020

The United States and China signed a trade truce after nearly two decades of conflict. This truce came as a big breather for the global businesses that had been suffering losses due to the trade war between the two dominant economic powers of the world.

The US-China trade deal

Beijing would import an additional $200 billion in US products over two years and it would include additional $32 billion in agricultural goods. The current import would be bigger than the purchases of 2017 before Trump launched an offensive on China.

The trade war resulted in soyabeen exports to China reducing to only $3 billion from $12 billion in 2017. Due to the export slump, the Trump administration had to pay $28 billion to farmers as aid in the last two years. But leading economists are questioning whether the US farmers would be able to meet the growing demand for soyabeen.

Twice-yearly dialogue process is also restored in the deal. Previous US administration used to conduct the dialogue regularly before Trump scrapped the process.

Trump said the deal was momentous

US President Donald Trump said that he took a momentous step that was never taken before with China. He signed a deal with China’s Vice Premier Liu He. The Chinese Vice Premier said that deal was good for China, the Us and the world at large.

Trump said that the negotiations were tough but he was righting the wrongs of the past. He even thanked the Chinese Vice Premier and said that he would visit China soon.

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