- Monday, March 03, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and news for Friday, March 31, 2023:
India’s new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) will set the stage for exporters to increase the share in global trade to achieve target of $2 trillion (£1.62 trillion) by 2030 and the new policy will enhance India’s resilience as also continuity and stability in India’s trade, industry associations said on Friday, ANI reported. The Narendra Modi government on Friday unveiled India’s new FTP 2023, which seeks to take country’s exports to $2 trillion by the year 2030. “Initiatives like reducing transaction costs and integration of e-commerce into the trade policy along with sector specific targets are pragmatic and business-like measures for taking India to the next level of global trade and goods and services.
Russia’s biggest oil producer Rosneft Oil Company has signed a term agreement with Indian Oil Company (IOC), India’s top oil company, to increase oil supplies and diversify India’s oil grades substantially, ANI/NewsResearch reported. In the presence of India’s oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the agreement between the two firms was signed by Rosneft’s chief executive officer Igor Sechin and IOC chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya during the former’s recent visit to India. “The parties also discussed ways of expanding integrated cooperation between Rosneft Oil Company and Indian companies in the entire value chain of the energy sector, including possibilities of making payments in national currencies,” said the Russian company in a statement. During his trip, Sechin also met with officials from the Indian government and with the heads of some of the country’s largest oil and gas companies.
India’s external debt rose 1.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter to $613.1 billion (£497 billion) as of December end, the government said in a statement on Friday, Reuters reported. The country’s external debt-to-GDP ratio stood at the same level as the September quarter at 19.1 per cent. The valuation loss in September-December period due to depreciation of the US dollar against other major currencies such as yen, euro and UK pound was $3.8 billion (£3.08 billion), the statement added. The share of short-term debt, with maturity of up to one year, in total external debt increased marginally to 21.1 per cent as of end-December 2022, from 21 per cent as of September last year Earlier in March, Shaktikanta Das, governor of India’s Reserve Bank of India, said India’s total external debt is well within manageable limits.
ArcelorMittal SA on Friday said its Indian steelmaking joint venture with Asian peer Nippon Steel Corp has entered into a loan deal worth $5 billion (£4.05 billion) with a consortium of Japanese lenders, Reuters reported. The proceeds would be used to support expansion of the JV’s annual steel-making capacity at its Hazira plant in India to 15 million tonnes from 9 million tonnes, the European steelmaker announced in a statement. The expansion would see development of downstream rolling and finishing facilities for various sectors, including defence, infrastructure and automotive and add 60,000 jobs, it said.
Production of eight infrastructure sectors recorded an almost flat growth rate of six per cent in February as against 5.9 per cent in the same month last year, according to India’s official data released on Friday, PTI reported. The growth in February is lowest in the last three months. The output of core sectors had increased by 8.9 per cent in January 2023 and 7 per cent in December 2022. It was 5.7 per cent in November 2022.
Air India on Friday said it will introduce premium economy class for travel from May 15 in select flights to the US, PTI reported. The premium economy class will initially be available in select flights operated with Boeing 777-200LR aircraft on Bengaluru-San Francisco, Mumbai-San Francisco, and Mumbai-New York routes. In a release, the airline said it has “opened sale for the new cabin, for travel starting May 15, 2023, becoming the first and only Indian carrier to offer the choice of four cabin classes – First, Business, Premium Economy, and Economy”.
