Dr (Mrs) Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, the President of the Republic of Mauritius called on President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan today.
Welcoming Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim on her first visit to India, President Mukherjee congratulated her on being the first woman President of Mauritius.
President Mukherjee said people of India are delighted that Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim has personal, professional and academic linkages with India.
India attaches high importance to its relations with Mauritius which has a very special place in the hearts and minds of the Indian people.
The President expressed confidence that with the achievements of the President of Mauritius in the fields of science and technology, education and innovation, Mauritius will become stronger and a new dynamism will be added to India-Mauritius bilateral relations.
The President of Mauritius conveyed her condolences to people of Chennai who are suffering on account of floods. She described Indians as brothers and sisters and not just friends.
She conveyed gratitude for India’s assistance in the development of Mauritius ever since its independence and called for a continuation of the close ties in the coming days based on institution and capacity building.
Uber’s fund-raising efforts are showing no signs of slowing down. The company, based in San Francisco, is close to completing the raising of a $2.1-billion round of venture capital, according to people briefed on the company’s plans, the company’s single-largest round to date.
Once completed, the investment will value the company at $62.5 billion, according to three people briefed on the plans, securing Uber’s place as the world’s most valuable private start-up.
Tiger Global Management participated in the newest round, led by its partner Lee Fixel, as did T Rowe Price, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the terms are still private.
Talks of the funding plans were previously reported by The New York Times in October. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported the $62.5-billion valuation.
Uber declined to comment on any fund-raising talks, as did T Rowe Price. A Tiger Global spokeswoman declined to comment.
Competition is intensifying in the global ride-hailing market, as rivals like Lyft, Didi Kuaidi and other companies raise billions of dollars in to expand as quickly as possible. Lyft, another ride-hailing start-up, is in talks to raise a further $500 million in funding, according to four people briefed on the round, which could value the company at roughly $4 billion. Didi Kuaidi, to date, has raised more than $4 billion in private investment.
The participation of Tiger Global, however, is particularly interesting. Tiger Global is an investor in Ola and GrabTaxi, two of Uber’s largest competitors in India and Southeast Asia.
It is perhaps the first time a major institutional investor participated in the rounds of both Uber and its major competitors. And on Thursday, Ola and GrabTaxi announced a strategic partnership with Lyft, which is also based in San Francisco and is Uber’s major competitor in the United States.
Aside from these legacy issues, the underlying asset trend for Indian banks will be stable because of a generally supportive operating environment, said Moody’s Vice President.
Many sectors, other than power and coal, face environmental risks that could translate into credit risk, according to Moody’s Investor Service. These include automobiles, oil & gas, mining, steel, and commodity chemicals. Moody’s has identified 11 sectors with around $2 trillion in rated debt as having credit exposure to environmental risks in the next five years.
At the same time, 57 sectors, representing $59 trillion of rated debt, are considered low risk, with environmental risks unlikely to materially impact credit quality. While some like telecommunication operate with fundamentally low exposure to environmental risks, others such as banks and insurance companies, have business diversity to mitigate their current exposures.
Unregulated power generators, which do not receive the benefits of cost recovery from their customers, coal mining and coal terminals, are the most exposed. Moody’s has developed a heat map that qualitatively scores the relative exposure of 86 sectors globally to environmental risks, in terms of both the materiality and timing of any likely credit effects. The amount of rated debt covered by this sector review is $67.9 trillion.
Environmental risks have been classified into two broad categories — the effects of environmental hazards, and the consequences of regulation designed to prevent or reduce those hazards.
Another set of 18 sectors, accounting for $7 trillion in rated debt, face environmental risks that could be material, but over five or more years. In this “emerging, moderate risk” category are developing economy sovereign and regional governments, integrated oil & gas companies and regulated power generation utilities. These have a clear exposure to environmental risks that could affect their credit quality. However, it is less certain that the identified risks will develop in a way to impact credit ratings for most issuers in these sectors.
“The longer runway to respond to risks could provide time to implement policy changes, adjust business models or financial profiles, or develop technological or lower-cost solutions, mitigating the impact of such risks,” said the report.
Sovereigns with developing economy as well as regional and local governments face increasing infrastructure challenges to manage environmental risks from water shortages, pollution or natural disasters. Unlike the overall scores, the sub-category scores were assessed based on the sector’s general level of exposure to that particular environmental risk, rather than any potential to affect ratings.
It is part of the $ 75 bn announced during Prime Minister’s August trip to the Gulf nation that marked a paradigm shift in bilateral strategic and economic partnership.
Oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) has identified key sectors including railways, housing, ports, roads and renewable energy (mainly solar) for investments in India as part of the $75 billion announced during Prime Minister’s August trip to the Gulf nation that marked a paradigm shift in bilateral strategic and economic partnership.
UAE had announced to investment $75 billion for various sectors in India when Narendra Modi made a two-day trip to Abu Dhabi and Dubai last August — first by an Indian PM to the Gulf nation in three decades. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was in UAE to discuss this investment proposal among other issues and met senior officials of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), one of the largest sovereign funds in the Gulf nation, officials from Abu Dhabi said.
ADIA would contribute to the $75-billion fund allotted for investments in India in sectors including railways, roads, housing, ports and renewable energy (solar initiatives) where the Modi government is seeking foreign direct investment to boost economy, officials from the Gulf state indicated. The Indian PM is likely to announce a solar mission at the Paris climate change summit.
However, UAE is pushing to begin the process of investments in near future by various ministries in keeping with Modi’s promise. “India is now a strategic partner for UAE and Abu Dhabi wants to invest in India’s growth and seeking expedition of the process on the ground,” a person familiar with the developments told ET.
With this goal in mind Jaitley met Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Makhtoum, Minister of Finance, UAE, to discuss issues of mutual cooperation in the field of economic and trade development during his trip there. His visit follows that of UAE’s Foreign Minister to India within weeks of Modi’s trip to Abu Dhabi and this shows the seriousness of both nations which have now expanded their counter terror cooperation amid growing threat from IS and other terror groups in South Asia. Strengthening counter-terror cooperation also figured during Jaitley’s deliberations with UAE leadership.
The finance minister also invited large participation and investment in recently constituted National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) by the Sovereign Wealth Funds and Pensions Funds of the UAE. He said the investment in NIIF will ensure good returns on investment as the government will invest these funds in infrastructure projects.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today promised to give $10.6 billion to developing nations by 2020 to help them implement policies against global warming, ahead of the UN climate talks in Paris next week.
The decision to offer 1.3-trillion yen ($10.6 billion) came after Japan gave a roughly combined 2.0 trillion yen for the same purpose in 2013 and 2014.
The government said in a statement that the money covers a one-year period but did not specify which year, only that it would be offered by 2020.
“We attach great importance to the notion that all nations will participate in agreeing to a new international framework,” Abe said in a meeting on global warming with members of his cabinet.
He added that Japan wanted to to encourage active participation in climate change by developing nations.
The pledged money will be funded both by the private and public sectors, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.
He said Abe would announce details of the pledge at the UN climate conference to be held in Paris, which is set to be the biggest gathering of world leaders on climate in history.
“COP 21 will be an extremely important meeting as we aim to agree on an international framework against global warming that will replace the Kyoto Protocol,” Suga said.
“Prime Minister Abe will announce (Japan’s climate programmes) to the world at the COP 21 summit,” Suga said of the gathering.Suga said of the gathering
Japan has aggressively promoted use of its energy efficient technologies and infrastructure, such as train systems and power generation stations, to developing nations.
Offshore units of Nomura, Standard Chartered and Bank of America Merrill Lynch bought about Rs 3,000 crore of the Rs 3,500 crore on offer. (Photo: Reuters)
Three banks snapped up almost 90 percent of bonds sold by Indian states to foreigners, and turned them into derivatives, raising the prospect of more volatility in one of Asia’s best performing debt markets.
Several market participants involved in the sale said offshore units of Nomura, Standard Chartered (STAN.L) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) bought about 30 billion rupees ($451 million) of the 35 billion rupees on offer in October, the first window for foreigners to buy in.
Much of that debt was then sold for a hefty fee as derivatives known as total return swaps to offshore clients keen for the bonds’ higher yields, compared with India’s already popular sovereign debt, and with similar guarantees.
In contrast, traditional buyers of the illiquid bonds are state banks, who hold the debt to maturity.
When contacted by Reuters, the three banks declined to comment.
India has been one of the most resilient emerging markets, with foreign buyers taking up about $9.7 billion of debt this calendar year, nearly exhausting available limits on sovereign debt purchases.
Those purchases have helped domestic debt return 7.8 percent so far this year, the highest in Asia, according to HSBC.
Given that appetite and a need to expand its investor base, India let foreigners buy state bonds and also relaxed the investment ceiling in government bonds by around 56 billion rupees in September: the first step in a gradual opening.
“The main objective of (Reserve Bank of India) in opening these limits is to attract diverse and new sets of investors to the Indian bond market,” said a senior foreign bank treasury official based in Mumbai.
“But if eventually the FII (offshore) units of the foreign banks in India get to corner the limits, elbowing out the long term investors, then that leaves open a big risk of these trades unwinding and disrupting the Indian debt market.”
India’s central bank has sought to discourage “bond tourists”, favouring what it calls “real” investors, who would not flit in and out of the market.
Although currency and market risks have been passed on to other buyers, a sharp sell-off could see these investors re-selling the derivatives back to the banks and forcing them to swap the debt or sell at a discount.
But with foreigners owning only 4 percent of Indian government debt versus 47 percent in Indonesia, for example – the impact of even a significant sell-off would likely be muted.
“We are less concerned as the liquidity in IGBs is one of the highest in the region, and foreign positioning remains a very low component of the outstanding market,” said Rohit Arora, interest rate strategist at Barclays in Singapore, referring to Indian government bonds.
The next window for foreigners to buy state government debt is on Jan. 1.
($1 = 66.450 Indian rupees)
(Writing by Clara Ferreira Marques; Editing by Rafael Nam and Jacqueline Wong)
Bandhan Bank Chairman and Managing Director Chandra Shekhar Ghosh has started disbursing regular loans, although at a muted pace, on steady deposit mobilisation.
The bank is offering retail, small and medium enterprises and agriculture loans. Housing loans have been capped at Rs 1,5 lakh commercial vehicle loans at Rs 1,0 lakh and loans to small and medium enterprises at Rs 2,5 lakh. All loans are linked to the base rate, which is set at 12 per cent, much higher than most banks. According to a Bandhan Bank spokesperson, it started its credit operations on a small scale about a month ago. The bank was launched on August 23, 2015.
Bandhan Bank has garnered deposits of Rs 3,700 crore, according to C S Ghosh, CEO and MD. The bank expects a fresh round of capital infusion of Rs 428 crore from International Finance Corporation and the Singapore government-backed GIC by March 2016. The two agencies have already invested Rs 1,020 crore in the bank and have committed an equity investment of Rs 1,600 crore.
The capital base of Bandhan Bank is Rs 2,570 crore, against the regulatory requirement of Rs 500 crore.
Fresh capital infusion will bolster this to Rs 3,052 crore, translating to a credit risk-weighted asset ratio of 44.54 per cent, one of the highest in the sector.
The bank is depending on aggressive deposit mobilisation to bring down cost of funds over the next year.
The plan is to be aggressive in taking deposits while going slow in lending. Thus, even as its lending rates are high, the bank is offering competitive deposit rates. Savings interest rates have been fixed at 4.25 per cent for deposits below Rs 1 lakh and five per cent for above Rs 1 lakh. For term deposits, the maximum interest rate, between three-five years maturity, has been fixed at 8.5 per cent, with an additional 0.5 per cent for senior citizens. Bandhan Bank started operations with a simultaneous launch of 501 branches, 50 ATMs, a microloan book of Rs 10,500 crore and savings accounts totalling 1.43 million. By the end of this financial year, the plan is to have 632 branches and 250 ATMs in 27 states.
Dr (Mrs) Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, the President of the Republic of Mauritius called on President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan today.
