- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are some news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Tuesday, September 6, 2022:
India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas Hardeep Singh Puri said most of his country’s crude oil supplies in the near future will come from the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as it seeks a secure and affordable energy base, Reuters reported. Indian refiners have been snapping up relatively cheap Russian oil, shunned by Western companies and countries since sanctions were imposed against Moscow for what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. India’s imports from Russian oil rose by 4.7 times, or more than 400,000 barrels per day, in April-May, but fell in July.
The Narendra Modi government has directed its ministries and departments yet again to raise the pace of capital spending to not only boost growth but also help generate more jobs, ThePrint reported, saying the development comes at a time when states’ capex has slowed. The directions came from cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba in a review meeting he chaired in August to discuss the preparation of Vision India 2047 — a plan that aims to bring India among the top three global economies and inch closer to the status of a developed nation by 2047, when it turns 100 as an independent nation. According to the minutes of the review meeting, Gauba asked ministries and departments ”to step-up capital expenditure and monitor it to ensure that expenditure incurred is [according to] the requirement projected”, ThePrint added.
Moody’s Investors Service retained India’s sovereign rating on Tuesday at Baa3 with a stable outlook saying that growing challenges to the global economy, including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, higher inflation and tightening financial situations on the back of policy tightening are unlikely to disrupt the South Asian country’s ongoing recovery from Covid-19 pandemic in 2022 and 2023, the Hindu BusinessLine reported.
SoftBank Group is in talks to invest $35 million in Indian car service and repair firm GoMechanic, in what would be one of the Japanese investor’s smallest bets in India by its Vision Fund, which typically signs bigger cheques, two sources told Reuters. SoftBank has for years been a prominent backer of Indian startups, investing close to $4 billion last year alone, according to data from Venture Intelligence. Its big-ticket investments include digital payments firm Paytm and online education firm Unacademy. But investment industry executives say SoftBank has started taking a more measured approach to its investments after a global tech rout. Last month, its boss Masayoshi Son said SoftBank would invest much less this year than in 2021, following a record $26.2 billion quarterly loss at its Vision Fund on falling tech valuations.
South Korean auto major Hyundai is expecting best ever sales in India this year as it looks to produce more with easing of chip supply concerns, according to a senior company official, Press Trust of India reported. The company, which on Tuesday expanded its N Line range in the country with the introduction of Venue N Line trim, is also banking on strong demand for its products with the pending order list having crossed the 1.3-lakh unit mark. “The semiconductor situation is easing and demand continues to be robust…This year we are fairly confident that we will achieve the highest ever domestic sales in the history of the company in India,” Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) director-sales, marketing, service, Tarun Garg told PTI in an interaction. The company had logged best ever domestic wholesales of 5.5 lakh (0.55 million) units in 2018, he said.
IDFC FIRST Bank on Tuesday signed up as a participant in the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an initiative of the Indian ministry of commerce and industry, to enable early adoption of the network among its customers, ANI/NewsVoir reported. As an early mover in the ONDC network, the Bank has enabled a platform for buyers which will help them discover sellers in the ONDC Network as it develops over time. The Bank has also started onboarding small merchants, who are its current account customers, onto a partner app registered with ONDC. The app is expected to help small merchants carry out transactions over ONDC’s electronic network and step up their digital footprint.
