FIEO sets export target of US$ 325 bn for this fiscal

New Delhi: With exports recording continuous growth, exporters body FIEO expects that the country's merchandise shipments would reach USD 325 billion this fiscal.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta also said while India is showing a positive trend on exports since the last nine months, there is a bit of anxiety in the business with regard to the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
"Indian exports have been on an upward trend in last few months with export of USD 275 billion in last fiscal and a target of USD 325 billion to achieve in 2017-18," FIEO said in a statement.
Further, it has organised an interactive session with Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia in Kolkata.
Quoting the secretary, FIEO said, "GST is a well needed reform and the transition will require some time, and calibrated process of foreign trade policy will be continuous".
With regard to shipping lines overcharging, she stated that the Director General Shipping has been informed and they are waiting for a response from them.

Digital commerce in India to reach Rs 2.20 lakh cr by Dec'

New Delhi: The digital commerce market in India is pegged to grow to Rs 2,20,330 crore by December 2017, an industry report said today.
According to a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB Kantar, digital commerce in India has grown at a CAGR of 30 per cent to reach Rs 1,68,891 crore by the end of December 2016.
"It is estimated to reach Rs 2,20,330 crore by December 2017," it added. This translates into a growth of 30.4 per cent.
The online travel market, which would continue to account for over half of India's digital commerce, is expected to touch Rs 1,18,598 crore by December 2017. This is over 24 per cent higher than Rs 95,198 crore registered last year.
The e-Tailing segment is expected to reach around Rs 94,964 crore by the end of this year, growing at about 59 per cent from Rs 59,876 crore in December 2016.
The report also stated that online utility payment (for services like DTH/telephone and electricity bills) would reach Rs 7,532 crore this year from Rs 6,277 crore last year.
Other online service market that includes online bookings done for entertainment, online grocery and online food delivery, is expected to reach Rs 4,587 crore in the said period.

Bank credit grows at 6.02%, deposits at 11.19%

Mumbai: Banks' credit growth grew at 6.02 per cent to Rs 76,58,212 crore in the fortnight ended June 9 from Rs 72,22,939 crore in the same period of fiscal 2016, according to the data released by RBI.
The growth in advances in the reporting period was slightly higher than the previous fortnight ended May 26, 2017, RBI data showed.
In the fortnight ended May 26, advances had grown by 5.08 per cent with an outstanding loans at Rs 75,93,546 crore.
In the fiscal ended March 31, 2017, credit growth had plunged to a multi-year low of 5.08 per cent with an outstanding loan at Rs 78.81 trillion as against Rs 75.01 trillion on April 1, 2016.
In the reporting fortnight, bank deposits grew at 11.19 per cent to Rs 105,77,947 crore from Rs 95,13,148 crore in the fortnight ended June 10, 2016.
Deposits in the fortnight ended May 26 had grown by 10.9 per cent to Rs 105,51,182 crore from Rs 95,14,087 crore in the period ended May 27, 2016, the data showed.

Sebi eases M&A norms for distressed firms

Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) relaxed some rules on Wednesday to hasten the resolution of stressed assets in bank balance sheets.
The regulator has exempted buyers of shares in distressed companies from the requirement of making an open offer even if the purchase triggers such an event under the takeover code, Sebi announced after its board meeting on Wednesday.
Under Sebi’s takeover norms, one of the triggers for an open offer is when an entity acquires 25% or more in a listed company. The entity then has to make an offer to buy an additional 26% stake in the company from the public shareholders.
Sebi said it has come across cases where lenders acquired shares in a distressed company but could not sell the stake to a new investor because the takeover norms proved restrictive and reduced the funds available for investment in the stressed firm.
This has triggered the need for additional relaxation, which is at present available only to financial creditors under the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) strategic debt restructuring (SDR) scheme. Indian banks are currently sitting on stressed assets of Rs10 trillion and last week, RBI identified 12 large accounts where it directed banks to initiate bankruptcy proceedings.
These exemptions, however, will need to be approved by a special resolution (at least 75% shareholders voting in favour). Secondly, the shares bought by the new investor will also be locked in for at least three years, Sebi said.
The regulator said it will grant similar exemptions for those firms which have got their resolution plans approved by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
“The new insolvency law allows insolvency professionals a lot of latitude to try different permutations and combinations to unlock the maximum value of a stressed company,” said Sandeep Parekh, founder of law firm Finsec Law Advisors. These would range “from a wipeout of existing equity and issue of new equity to banks to sale of a substantial stake to a strategic investor to a listed spin-off. If each stage of a multi-stage action plan triggers open offers and other Sebi regulatory costs, the unlocking of value to banks of their already distressed assets would come down”.
Secondly, the regulator also relaxed laws which will make it easier for private equity-backed firms to raise funds through new share sales. It has exempted category II alternative investment funds (AIFs) such as private equity and real estate funds from the mandatory one-year lock-in of shares when a company they have invested in goes for an initial public offering. Currently, category I AIFs such as venture capital and infrastructure funds are granted that exemption.
“This would bring about uniformity, ease of doing business and expand the investor base available for capital raising,” the regulator said in a statement.
A third set of announcements were related to proposals that will allow foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) easier access. The regulator said it was planning to allow more regions to grant FPI registration by including countries that have a diplomatic tie-up with India, simplify so-called broad-based requirements and relax ‘fit and proper’ rules.
An FPI is considered to be broad-based if it has at least 20 investors, with none of them holding more than 49%. However, if the broad-based fund has institutional investors, it is not necessary for the fund to have 20 investors, according to existing Sebi norms.
Sebi will soon float a discussion paper to introduce the new FPI norms, said chairman Ajay Tyagi.
However, the regulator continued to be tough on investments through participatory notes (P-notes). On Wednesday, it formalized its proposal (made in a discussion paper in May) to levy a fee of $1,000 on subscribers of offshore derivative investments (which typically involve P-notes).
The regulator said it is also in the process of reviewing norms for the equity derivatives market and plans to release a discussion paper.
“Retail investors are not fully aware of the risks involved in derivatives investment,” said Tyagi.
In the ongoing case of alleged violation of algorithmic trading norms by the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd, the markets regulator said it has issued show-cause notices to 14 key managerial persons of the bourse and will do its own investigation with the help of forensic auditors.
“We have also started an investigation to look into issues of possible connivance between NSE employees and brokers and unfair gains for brokers,” said Tyagi.
EY, which was appointed as the forensic auditor to prepare a report on NSE, will submit its report to Sebi in two weeks, said Tyagi.
Separately, in a circular, Sebi said it has allowed hedge funds to trade in the commodity derivatives market, subject to certain safeguards.

India's clean energy sector could create 300,000 new jobs by 2020: Study

New Delhi: More than 300,000 new workers can be employed in wind and solar jobs and more than one million total employment opportunities can be created in achieving India’s ambitious clean energy goals to install 175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power by 2022, said a study released on Wednesday.
It highlighted that the solar and wind energy sectors employed more than 21,000 additional people across India in 2016-17 while an additional 25,000 people will be employed over the coming year.
The study also said that labour-intensive rooftop solar segment will employ 70% of the new workforce, creating seven times more jobs than large-scale projects such as solar farms.
India’s clean energy workforce comprises solar installers, maintenance workers, engineers, technicians and performance data monitors.
The study Greening India’s Workforce: Gearing Up For Expansion of Solar and Wind Power in India published by Delhi-based think tank, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) also stressed that strong growth in the domestic solar manufacturing industry could provide full time employment for an additional 45,000 people in India.
Just before 2015 Paris Climate summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had announced an ambitious target of 175 GW renewable power which included 100 GW Solar power and 60 GW wind power.
At present, India’s installed wind power capacity is 32.2GW and solar is 12.2GW.
According to the CEEW analysis, India’s clean energy goals have the potential to put 34,600 people to work in wind power, 58,600 in utility solar and 238,000 in rooftop solar jobs over the next five years.
“Solar jobs will be well distributed across India with Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh leading in job creation. Wind jobs are likely to be concentrated in a few states that have high wind potential, as has been the case with wind capacity,” said the study.
“80% of the new clean energy workforce will be employed during the construction phase. However, despite these being contractual jobs, the large pipeline of renewable energy projects creates enough opportunities for workers to stay employed. Additionally, since most of these jobs are in the rooftop solar PV segment, central and state governments must provide greater policy support to the rooftop sector,” said Neeraj Kuldeep, Programme Associate at CEEW.
Nehmat Kaur, consultant and development economist at NRDC said, “Clean energy expansion is generating thousands of new jobs while meeting India’s climate and economic goals. With this tremendous opportunity, India is stepping up as a global leader in demonstrating how a growing economy can scale up renewables, generate employment and provide access in the face of rising energy demands.”
The study recommended to central government and state governments to provide policy priority to rooftop solar to create renewable energy jobs.
It also recommended the governments to support development of training centres led by the private sector to source construction jobs locally since solar jobs are well distributed among states.

PE investment shoots up 64% to US$ 963 million in May: Thornton

New Delhi: Private equity investment in May jumped 64 per cent in value terms with deals worth USD 963 million, mainly driven by big ticket investments, says a report.
According to assurance, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton, there were 67 PE deals worth USD 963 million in May this year, while in the same month last year, there were 74 such transactions worth USD 587 million.
For the January-May period, though the number of PE deals declined, but investment values have shown an improvement, indicative of investors beginning to take bigger bets on the Indian economy, more specifically in IT & ITeS and retail and consumer sector.
During the first five months of this year, there were 349 PE deals worth USD 6,402 million, while in January-May period last year, there were 421 such deals worth USD 5,487 million.
The month of May was dominated by investments in startups which contributed to 58 per cent of total investment volumes.
Startups in sectors such as enterprise application and infrastructure, travel, transport and logistics, and FinTech attracted significant attention from investors and constituted over 51 per cent of startup investment volumes.
According to industry reports, May this year witnessed one of the largest FDI in the real estate this year with Xander Group's acquisition of Shriram properties Gateway IT SEZ in Chennai for USD 350 million.
Other sectors such as IT & ITeS, e-commerce and agriculture sectors also attracted large investments of over USD 50 million during the month.
In terms of sector spread, real estate seems to be gaining interest and contributed more than 40 per cent in terms of deal value. The remaining 60 per cent was mostly contributed by the technology sector.
"All eyes seem to be now on GST implementation and its impact on not only trade and economy, but more importantly on investor interest. Since there is now clear visibility on this, we should see good traction in both M&A and PE," Grant Thornton India LLP Partner Prashant Mehra said.
Mehra further noted that with India continuing to be favoured destination among foreign investors, we should hopefully see more in-bound action going forward.

Fruit & vegetable exports to Qatar rise 15% in 2 weeks

Mumbai: India’s exports of fresh fruit and vegetables to Qatar have jumped by 15 per cent in the past two weeks because of an increase in demand, owing to disruptions in supply to the country from Saudi Arabia and other neighbouring nations.
The supply to Qatar has received a boost since early this month after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen severed diplomatic ties with Qatar and blocked access to Doha, Qatar’s capital, by land, sea, and air.
Maldives and Libya later joined the countries that have isolated Qatar. Consequently, importers in Qatar have been buying more from India.
To meet their immediate needs, importers in Doha have started transporting by air. Many cargo airlines have delivered goods in large quantities to Qatar in the past two weeks.
Confirming the development, a senior official of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) said: “India’s fruit and vegetables exports to Qatar have increased in the last two weeks probably due to halt in their exports from Doha’s neighbouring countries.”
India’s exports of fresh fruits and vegetables are rising for the past three years owing to local producers turning quality-conscious.
Also, Indian exporters have stepped up marketing, which has helped in price competitiveness in overseas markets.
The data compiled by Apeda show India’s exports of fresh fruit and vegetables at Rs 10,369.93 crore in the financial year 2016-17 compared to Rs 8,391.36 crore for the corresponding period last year. In terms of volumes, however, exports jumped to 4.1 million tonnes in FY17 versus 2.4 million tonnes in the previous fiscal year. West Asia contributes a major portion of India’s fruit and vegetables exports. A large quantity exported to West Asia goes to Qatar via other countries. But Doha has started importing from India directly.
The Apeda data show India’s direct exports to Qatar to be Rs 220 crore for FY17, an increase of 14 per cent from the previous year’s level of Rs 193 crore. “While fruit and vegetables exports to Qatar have increased in the past two weeks, the demand has not reached its limit due to Ramadan. Once this festival is over next week, new orders would start pouring in from Qatar,” said Anil Patil, proprietor, Incoexcofarms, a Pune-based fruit exporter.

Niti Aayog OKs Rs 18,000 cr project to increase train speeds

New Delhi: The ambitious Rs 18,000 crore project for increasing train speeds on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah rail corridors has got the Niti Aayog's approval, paving the way for being put up for Cabinet clearance.
The mega project is meant to bring about a paradigm shift in rail operations enabling trains to run at 160 km per hour on the busiest routes on the Indian railway network.
Aiming at reducing travel time between the three metropolises, the project envisages fencing off the entire 3,000 kms on both routes, upgradation of signalling system, elimination of all level crossings and installing train protection warning system (TPWS), among other works to make trains run at an increased speed of 160 kmh.
"Any project more than Rs 1,000 crore in worth will have to get the Niti Aayog clearance. So now after getting the Niti Aayog clearance yesterday, the proposal will now be examined by the expanded railway board," said a senior railway ministry official involved with the project.
The expanded railway board is comprised of senior representatives from department of expenditure, department of programme implementation and Niti Aayog, besides the board members.
The Railways will submit the proposal for cabinet clearance after getting the proposal approved by the expanded railway board.
The 1,483-km long New Delhi-Mumbai rail route will also include the Baroda-Ahmedabad sector, and is estimated to cost Rs 11,189 crore.
The 1,525-km long New Delhi-Howrah route, which also includes the Kanpur-Lucknow section, is estimated to cost Rs 6,974 crore.
The work on both sections will be given to a single agency through global bidding for effective implementation of the project.

Daily revision of fuel prices structurally positive for OMCs

New Delhi: The shift to daily revision in prices of petrol and diesel from fortnightly revision starting 16 June is structurally positive for Indian oil marketing companies (OMCs)—Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOC). With this, India joins countries such as the US and Australia where fuel prices are revised on a daily basis.
This means OMCs will be able to pass on daily changes in product prices and exchange rate fluctuations without delays.
IOC said daily revision of petrol and diesel prices will set new standards of transparency, encourage the automation drive of petrol pumps and lead to better stock management practices.
However, it will probably be a while before OMCs see benefits in the form of higher marketing margins in their financials. Every Re0.1/litre increase in petrol/diesel price adds 1.9-3.5% to OMC earnings per share, according to Credit Suisse Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd.
It’s also worth remembering here that competition from private sector companies will pose a threat to expansion in marketing margins. Already, OMCs have lost market share in the fuel retailing business to private sector firms in fiscal year 2017 (FY17).
Nevertheless, all three stocks have outperformed the Nifty 50 index in the past year, supported by earnings growth. Even so, valuations aren’t expensive.
Kotak Institutional Equities highlights in a report on 19 June that OMCs may look optically inexpensive trading at 10-12 times price-to-earnings multiples or 6-6.7 times EV/Ebitda for FY19. EV is short for enterprise value and Ebitda stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.
“However, it may be justified as a significant portion of the business is cyclical and it also requires meaningful amount of capex for upgradation and modernization, let alone to raise capacities,” added Kotak.
Share prices of these stocks did not alter dramatically on Tuesday. Note that Kotak’s earnings estimates are 12-15% below consensus for BPCL and HPCL, and around 2% for IOC.
Some analysts believe that OMC earnings peaked in FY17 and see risks for FY18 earnings. Lack of sizeable one-offs from inventory gains is one reason, says Spark Capital Advisors (India) Pvt. Ltd. Another reason would be rising competition in the auto fuels segment, it added.
The sharp appreciation in the last one year and the above mentioned concerns could well limit meaningful upsides for these OMC stocks. On the brighter side, a better refining margin environment and stronger demand for petroleum products will help boost sentiment for these stocks.

NCAER ups India's GDP growth to 7.6% for FY18

New Delhi: The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has revised up its projections for the country's economic growth to 7.6 per cent for the current financial year, compared with the earlier forecast of 7.3 per cent.
Similarly, growth in the country's gross value added was scaled up from 7 per cent to 7.3 per cent for the year.
Surprisingly, the think tank projected the wholesale price index-based (WPI) inflation to be 6.7 per cent for 2017-18. The WPI-based inflation stood at 3.85 per cent in April which further declined to 2.17 per cent in May.
India's economy grew 7.1 per cent in 2016-17, lower than 7.6 per cent against 8 per cent a year ago.
NCAER's projections are shade higher than Economic Survey which projected the GDP growth in the range of 6.75 per cent to 7.5 per cent for the current financial year. However, the World Bank has forecast growth to be just 7.2 per cent for the year.