- Thursday, January 16, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news related to Indian economy and business for Friday, January 13, 2023:
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday said both public and private sectors need to leverage synergies and think out of the box to seize opportunities arising as a result of the emerging global environment, PTI reported. While interacting with noted economists and experts at the government think tank NITI Aayog ahead of the budget next month, the prime minister also applauded the success of the India Digital story and the rapid adoption of fintech across the country, an official statement said.
Indian PM Narendra Modi on Friday announced that India will establish a Global South Centre of Excellence to undertake research on development solutions for developing countries and called for a human-centric globalisation to address their concerns, PTI reported. In his opening address at the concluding session of the Voice of Global South virtual summit, Modi said the challenges of Covid-19, rising prices of fuel, fertilisers, and food grains and increasing geo-political tensions have adversely impacted the developing countries. He said developing countries desire a globalisation that does not create a climate crisis or debt crisis or does not trigger unequal distribution of vaccines or over concentrated global supply chains.
On National Startup Day (January 16), it is a moment to celebrate that roughly half of all recognised startups in India are now based in Tier II and Tier III cities, ANI reported. This demonstrates that startups are here to stay, despite a brief pause in funding. It may be noted that the government recently announced a $200 million investment in startups that design code, tools, or devices. Calling the startup ecosystem a matter of pride, Vidushi Kapoor, co-founder, Process9, said, “We should take immense pride in our startup ecosystem, which is today, the third largest in the world. For this, we should recognise not only our ambitious entrepreneurs, but also investors, incubators, and our government, for nurturing this flame into a blazing fireball.”
India will seek an easing of European Union (EU) steel import quotas and tariffs in talks for a new trade deal as Indian steelmakers find difficulty in selling the alloy in one of the world’s big markets, a senior government official said, Reuters reported. In 2022, India and the EU relaunched negotiations for a free-trade agreement with the aim of completing talks by the end of 2023. The two sides previously launched talks in 2007, but they were frozen six years later due to a lack of progress. “India is likely to take up the issue of EU’s steel import quota and their high tariffs during the free trade negotiations,” said the informed official on the condition of anonymity.
India’s national company law tribunal has allowed the ownership of grounded carrier Jet Airways to be transferred to a consortium, led by Murari Lal Jalan, a UAE-based businessman, and Kalrock Capital from London, Reuters reported citing two sources, Once India’s biggest private carrier, Jet ran out of cash in April 2019. It was, however, supposed to resume operations by the first quarter of 2022 under its new owners but the airline is deadlocked with creditors over the resolution plan to lift it out of bankruptcy. Jet owes its lenders about rupees 180 billion (£1.8 billion). “The next step will involve the Jalan committee bringing in capital, implementing the plan and restarting operations,” an informed source was quoted as saying. The lenders will take a call on any subsequent steps after deliberation among the lender consortium, post the entire order is uploaded, a banker said, the Reuters report added.
Stepping up cooperation in the space sector, India and the US are expected to launch a joint Earth observation project — NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite — later this year, India’s science and technology minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday, PTI reported. He made the remarks during the visit of a US delegation led by Sethuraman Panchanathan, the director of the National Science Foundation. The NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Mission will measure the Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces and ice masses to provide information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise and groundwater and will support a host of other applications.
