- Friday, March 14, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news in brief on Indian economy and business for Thursday, October 12, 2023:
With India’s festival season about to kick off, e-commerce firms such as Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart are gearing up for a potentially record-breaking few weeks. Any lingering fears that inflation and higher interest rates would dampen consumers’ spirit are also being rapidly dispelled, Reuters reported. RedSeer, a consultancy in the southern city of Bengaluru that monitors more than 100 platforms covering 90 per cent of online sales, has predicted that virtual shoppers will spend a record $11 billion (£9 billion) during the month to mid-November – which would be nearly 20 per cent more than last year.
The results of the 17th round of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry-Indian Banks Association (FICCI-IBA) survey conducted for the period of January to June 2023 have revealed trends in India’s banking sector, ANI reported. According to a press release, with participation from 24 banks, including public sector, private sector, and foreign banks, this survey offers valuable insights into the financial health of the Indian economy. The country’s economy has been showing remarkable resilience, with a 7.2 per cent growth in the financial year ending March 2023 and a 7.8 per cent growth in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
Authorities in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday informed that Marion Biotech, whose cough syrups the central Asian country of Uzbekistan linked to the deaths of 65 children last year, will have to file a report of “corrective and preventive action” before it is allowed to reopen its factory, Reuters reported. The statement from the state’s drug controller came after the news outlet on Wednesday (11) reported an order from him dated September 14, saying that an appeal from the company to restart the factory had been partially accepted. While it said the company could resume production and sale of items that do not contain an ingredient linked to the cough syrup deaths, it did not give a timeline for the resumption of production.
India’s Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone has got offers worth about $213 million (£175 million) under its dollar bond buyback but will accept only $195 million (£160 million) as announced earlier, the company said in an exchange filing on Thursday, according to a Reuters report. Last month, the company initiated buyback of 3.375 per cent senior notes maturing in July next year and had said it plans to keep buying the outstanding notes over the next three quarters for cash. The outstanding for this bond stands at $520 million, according to data from LSEG. The yield on this note has dropped around 40 basis points since the company floated the buyback tender and was last at 8.43 per cent.
Nitin Paranjpe, a veteran corporate leader from Hindustan Unilever (HUL), has become an independent director on the board of Indian information technology giant Infosys. The appointment will come into effect from January 1 next year, Infosys said in a statement along with the company’s fiscal second quarter’s earnings release. “This appointment is based on the recommendation of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee of the Infosys Board, and is for a period of five years, subject to the approval of shareholders,” Infosys said, Moneycontrol reported. Paranjpe is currently the non-executive chairman of HUL and the chief people officer and chief transformation officer at Unilever PLC.
(With agencies inputs)
