The trade data for the month of December 2016 was gratifying in that the exports were up by 15% on a sequential basis. Like the IIP numbers, the exports data also surprised on the upside because it was expected that the exports would slow down due to the impact of demonetization. However, demonetization did not …
What does a power company do when the price of its inputs go up? The answer is that the power company either absorbs the higher cost or passes it on to the customer. A basic pass versus absorb decision pertaining to power companies in India has become the pivot of a lot of controversy. The …
The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgement, ruled that sale of BS-III vehicles will not be permitted effective from April 01st 2017. The date of April 01st is critical because it is on this date that the BS-IV norms will take effect, entailing more rigorous standards of pollution control and environmental sustenance. It is essential …
On 29th of March, the cabinet cleared the four key bills that will facilitate the timely implementation of the GST effective from July 01st this year. The Lok Sabha passed the Central GST Bill, State GST Bill, Integrated GST Bill and the GST Compensation of States bill in the Lok Sabha. The GST bills were …
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) announced the CPI and the WPI numbers for the month of February. Both the numbers were expected to come out on the higher side due to the weakening of the base effect as well as rise in oil prices, which tends to have a sharper impact on …
The month of March is just about 2/3rd way through and foreign portfolio investors (FPI) have already infused close to $3 billion into Indian equities on a net basis. This is a stark departure from the trend in previous months. In fact, between October 2016 and February 2017, the fears of the negative effect of …
The Annual Economic Survey, which acts as the precursor to the Union Budget, was presented on 31st January; a day ahead of the Union Budget. The Economic Survey is important because it comes in the light of some interesting macroeconomic developments. The GDP growth, which had originally promised to beat Chinese GDP growth by over …
The GDP advance-estimates (at 7.1% for fiscal year 2016-17) put out by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of the Government of India has virtually confirmed a slowdown in growth. This is as against 7.6% GDP growth for the financial year 2015-16. While these are just early estimates based on trends coming out in the first …
The Monetary Policy announced by the RBI on October 04th was largely dovish on expected lines. The policy was announced in the background of 3 key triggers. Firstly, the overall CPI inflation had fallen sharply in the month of August 2016 to 5.05% from a level of 6.07% in July 2016. This was largely driven by …
RBI to continue with accommodative stance The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has kept the key policy rates unchanged in its third bi-monthly monetary policy review. Consequently, the repo rate remains at 6.5% and the CRR at 4%. An above average monsoon is likely to bring down the food inflation and consequently the CPI inflation …
