- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Thursday, May 4, 2023:
The Adani Group is developing an integrated data centre and technology business park in Visakhapatnam in the south-eastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to boost the local technology ecosystem in the region, ANI reported. The investments will be on top of the Rs 20,000 crore (£1.9 billion) already invested in the state, which created more than 18,000 direct and 54,000 indirect jobs, according to a statement from the Group. The Adani Group’s investments in Andhra Pradesh span multiple sectors, including ports, logistics, and renewable energy. The groundbreaking ceremony at the park site in Visakhapatnam was held on May 3 in the presence of Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, Adani Group managing director Rajesh Adani, and Adani Ports & SEZ CEO and Whole Time director Karan Adani.
SpiceJet CEO Ajay Singh on Thursday said there is a need for “more rational airfares” in the country even as he tried to assuage concerns of a hike in airfares as a consequence of competitor Go First filing for voluntary insolvency by terming it a “temporary phenomena”, PTI reported. He termed the Go First development as “extremely unfortunate” and expressed hope that the airline can use this opportunity to resolve their issues. Asked about concerns on hike in airfares as a consequence of competitor Go First filing for voluntary insolvency, the SpiceJet chief said: “Those are temporary phenomena”.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) on Thursday said it has concluded the Myanmar Port sale for a total consideration of $30 million (£23.8 million), PTI reported. In May 2022, APSEZ had announced signing of a Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) for the sale of its Myanmar Port. The SPA had certain Condition Precedents (CPs), including completion of the project and relevant approvals for smooth conduct of business by the buyer. APSEZ in a statement said given the continuous delay in the approval process and challenges in meeting certain CPs, APSEZ has obtained an independent valuation on “as is where is” basis.
After having successfully launched two exclusive brand stores in Indian cities of Mumbai and Chennai, the UK based brand FitFlop known for creating the most comfortable footwear in the world, further strengthens its brand presence in Ahmedabad and Coimbatore with new stores offering a wide range of footwear options for men and women at prime locations in the cities, ANI/PRNewswire reported. FitFlop in India is part of the specialty retail footwear chain Metro Brands Limited. Located in the newly launched Palladium Mall, Ahmedabad, and Brookefields Mall at Coimbatore, these new FitFlop stores will offer the latest footwear styles for men and women in the new concept store design.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted searches at multiple premises linked to prominent Kerala-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) Manappuram Finance Ltd, PTI reported. as part of a money laundering investigation against it, official sources said. The raids are being undertaken to gather pieces of evidence related to allegations that the company collected public deposits worth more than Rs 150 crore (£14.5 million) in contravention of Reserve Bank of India guidelines, they said. A total of four premises including the headquarters of the company in Thrissur and those of its MD and CEO V P Nandakumar were searched, they said.
In a major boost to fight climate change, India has plans to halt building new coal-fired power plants, besides those already in the pipeline, by removing a key clause from the final draft of its National Electricity Policy (NEP), Reuters reported citing sources. If approved by the federal cabinet chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi, the draft would make China the only major economy open to fresh requests to add considerable new coal-fired capacity, the Reuters report added. The two Asian economies account for about 80 per cent of all active coal projects as most developing nations wind down capacity to meet climate targets. As of January 2023, only 20 countries have more than one coal project planned, according to independent climate think tank E3G.
