Despite pandemic, Tamil Nadu attracts 17 investors worth Rs.15,128

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The companies which signed the MoUs are from Germany, Finland, Taiwan, France, South Korea, Japan, China, USA, Australia, UK

As many as 17 MoUs’ to bring in fresh industrial investments worth Rs 15,128 crore into Tamil Nadu were signed between a host of foreign companies and the Tamil Nadu government in the presence of chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday.

These projects in areas such as commercial vehicle manufacture, electronics, footwear, information technology, medical equipment and energy are expected to generate 47,150 jobs in Tamil Nadu, an official release here said.

The companies which signed the MoUs are from Germany, Finland, Taiwan, France, South Korea, Japan, China, USA, Australia, UK and the Netherlands, indicating that Tamil Nadu continues to be a destination for foreign direct investment (FDI).

Palaniswami’s government has been taking a number of initiatives for economic revival.  They include appointment of a high-power committee of economic experts led by former RBI governor C Rangarajan to chalk out strategies in the medium-term, the Industrial Guidance Bureau facilitating single-window clearance of investment proposals, the recent policy announced to boost production of medical equipment and drugs in the wake of Covid-19 and TIDCO offering a Rs.102 crore package to meet working capital requirement of 799 MSMEs’, an official release said.

The MoUs signed today include the following projects: Daimler India is to expand its commercial vehicle manufacturing at its Oragdam factory in Kancheepuram district involving an investment of Rs.2,277 crore, creating 400 more jobs.

Finnish firm Salcomp will invest Rs.1,300 crore in the Nokia special economic zone in Sriperumbudur to manufacture mobile phone components, to generate 10,000 additional jobs in Kancheepuram district and this project would help to rejuvenate the Nokia SEZ in that district.

The MoUs further include Rs. 900 crore investment by Japan’s Polymatech Electronics to make semiconductor chips at the Oragadam SIPCOT industrial park, a Rs.350 crore joint venture footwear manufacture project by Taiwan’s Chung Jye Company Ltd and Aston Shoes, a Rs.400 crore industrial park to be developed at Mappedu in Kancheepuram district by Australian firm, Lai Investment Manager Pvt Ltd., South Korea’s ‘Mando Automotive India  Pvt Ltd.  to invest Rs.150 crore in Pillaipakkam SIPCOT industrial park in Kancheepuram district, Netherlands’ Dinex to invest Rs.100 crore in the Mahindra City Industrial Park in Chengalpattu district for auto-components manufacture, a 750-mw gas-based power project at Ponneri in Thiruvallur district by Indo-UK joing venture, Chennai Power Generation Limited’ involving an investment of Rs.3,000 crore, and France’s IGL India Transplantations Solutions Ltd to invest Rs. 18 crore in medical equipment in SIPCOT park at Cheyyar in Tiruvannamalai district.

Down south in Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts, a huge investment of Rs. 2,000 crore is envisaged by Vivid Solaire Energy Private Limited of France, to manufacture wind mills equipment, the release said. The USA’s HDCI Data Centre Holdings Chennai LLP will invest in an IT project in Ambattur in Chennai involving an investment of Rs. 2,800 crore, it said.

While Singapore’s ST Tele Media will invest Rs. 1,500 crore in a new IT project in Chennai, wind mill components will be made by Germany’s Baetter in Chennai involving an investment of Rs.210 crore. Besides there, there are four more industrial investments in the pipeline in Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts including China’s ‘BYD India Private Ltd’, to invest Rs.50 crore in an electric vehicle manufacture project.

Mahindra Origins in a JV with a Taiwanese company, TJR Precision Technology Company, will invest Rs.46 crore in making precision components at Ponneri. Further, USA’s Lincoln Electric will invest Rs.12 crore in an R & D Centre at Mahindra Industrial Park in Chengalpattu district, the release added.

Top officials including Chief Secretary, Mr. K Shanmugam, Industries Secretary, N Muruganandam, State Guidance Bureau managing director, Ms. Karkala Usha, its executive director Mr. Aneesh Shekhar, and representatives of the various companies were among those who were present on the occasion.

Source: Deccan Chronicle

Japan plans world’s fastest supercomputer

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Presently, Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, remains the world’s most powerful computer.

Japan plans to build the world’s fastest-known supercomputer in a bid to arm the country’s manufacturers with a platform for research that could help them develop and improve driverless cars, robotics and medical diagnostics.

The ministry of economy, trade and industry will spend 19.5 billion yen ($173 million) on the previously unreported project, a budget breakdown shows, as part of a government policy to get back Japan’s mojo in the world of technology. The country has lost its edge in many electronic fields amid intensifying competition from South Korea and China, home to the world’s current best-performing machine.

In a move that is expected to vault Japan to the top of the supercomputing heap, its engineers will be tasked with building a machine that can make 130 quadrillion calculations per second—or 130 petaflops in scientific parlance—as early as next year, sources involved in the project told Reuters.

At that speed, Japan’s computer would be ahead of China’s Sunway Taihulight that is capable of 93 petaflops. “As far as we know, there is nothing out there that is as fast,” said Satoshi Sekiguchi, a director general at Japan’s ‎National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, where the computer will be built.

The push to return to the vanguard comes at a time of growing nostalgia for the heyday of Japan’s technological prowess, which has dwindled since China overtook it as the world’s second-biggest economy.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for companies, bureaucrats and the political class to work more closely together so Japan can win in robotics, batteries, renewable energy and other new and growing markets.

Deep learning

In the area of supercomputing, Japan’s aim is to use ultra-fast calculations to accelerate advances in artificial intelligence (AI), such as “deep learning” technology that works off algorithms which mimic the human brain’s neural pathways, to help computers perform new tasks and analyze scores of data.

Recent achievements in this area have come from Google’s DeepMind AI program, AlphaGo, which in March beat South Korean professional Lee Seedol in the ancient board game of Go.

Applications include helping companies improve driverless vehicles by allowing them to analyze huge troves of visual traffic data, or it could help factories improve automation. China uses the Sunway Taihulight for weather forecasting, pharmaceutical research, industrial design, among other things.

Japan’s new supercomputer could help tap medical records to develop new services and applications, Sekiguchi said. The supercomputer will be made available for a fee to Japan’s corporations, who now outsource data crunching to foreign firms such as Google and Microsoft, Sekiguchi and others involved in the project said.

The new computer has been dubbed ABCI, an acronym for AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure. Bidding for the project has begun and will close on 8 December. Fujitsu Ltd, the builder of the fastest Japanese supercomputer to date—the Oakforest-PACS, capable of 13.6 petaflops, declined to say if it would bid for the project. The company has, however, said it is keen to be involved in supercomputer development.

Source: http://www.livemint.com/Science/tvHE1Qa3EshJdFSkiqCoxK/Japan-plans-worlds-fastest-supercomputer.html

India ranks 130th in ease of doing business index

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India continues to rank low at 130th position in terms of ease of doing business, with the country seeing little or no improvement in dealing with construction permits, getting credit and other parameters.

In the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, India’s place remained unchanged from last year’s original ranking of 130 among the 190 economies that were assessed on various parameters. However, the last year’s ranking has been now revised to 131 from which the country has improved its place by one spot.

The government has been making efforts to further improve the ease of doing business and aims to bring the country in the top 50.

Expressing disappointment over no change in India’s ranking in the World Bank’s index on ease of doing business, Indian government regretted that the report did not take into consideration 12 key reforms undertaken by the government.

When it comes to ‘distance to frontier’ — a measurement of the gap between an economy’s performance and the best practice score of 100 — India’s score has improved to 55.27 this year from 53.93 last year.

India is the only country for which the report has a box dedicated to its ongoing economic reforms.

The list of countries in the Doing Business 2017 is topped by New Zealand while Singapore is ranked second. It is followed by Denmark, Hong Kong, South Korea, Norway, the UK, the US, Sweden and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Neighbouring Pakistan is ranked 144th in the list.

On the basis of reforms undertaken, the top 10 improvers are Brunei Darussalam, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Belarus, Indonesia, Serbia, Georgia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

A record 137 economies around the world have adopted key reforms that make it easier to start and operate small and medium-sized businesses, the report said.

Developing countries carried out more than 75 per cent of the 283 reforms in the past year, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for over one-quarter of all reforms, it added.

“What we have seen is a remarkable effort on the part of the government to implement business reforms. It looks like we are going to have to wait for another year or so. But the direction of change is fundamentally a very significant one,” Global Indicators Group Director Augusto Lopez-Claros told PTI in an interview.

The rankings are based on ten parameters — starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

India has improved its ranking with respect to various areas. In terms of getting electricity, the country’s position has jumped to 26th spot from 51st place last year.

When it comes to trading across borders, the ranking has moved up one place to 143, and in enforcing contracts the rise is of six spots to 172nd position.

However, with respect to starting a business, the ranking has slipped four places to 155th spot and in the case of dealing with construction permits by one rank to 185th.

As per the report, India’s ranking in terms of protecting minority investors dropped to 13th place from 10th position last year.

With regard to getting credit, the ranking has fallen by two places to 44.

Explaining as to why India’s reform efforts is not being reflected in the ease of doing business report, Lopez-Claros said it very often takes some time for the reforms implemented by governments about the regulatory environment to be felt on the ground by the business community.

Rita Ramalho, Manager of the Doing Business project said that there were in fact improvements this year.

“There are four areas of improvement this year in India getting electricity, trading across border, enforcing contracts and paying taxes,” Ramalho told PTI.

India’s ranking is based on the study of the system in the two cities of Mumbai and New Delhi.

“The reason why there is no real movement in the ranking is more to do with the fact that other countries are also moving. In absolute terms India, does improve significantly.

There aren’t many countries that improved more than India in terms of absolute number,” Ramalho said.

The ‘Doing Business’ project provides objective measures of business regulations for local firms in economies and selected cities at the sub-national level.

The World Bank is emphasising that countries pay attention to what it calls “distance to frontier” which is an absolute metric, Lopez-Claros said.

“There has been actually substantial increase in the last 12 months in India by couple of percentage points, which is quite large,” he noted.

Source: http://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/india-ranks-130th-in-ease-of-doing-business-index/story/238944.html

FPI equity buys in India touch $5.4 bn this year

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Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have bought equities worth $5.4 billion in the Indian markets in 2016 so far, according to data obtained from Bloomberg. This makes India the third biggest destination for FPIs after Taiwan and South Korea which have seen inflows of $13.6 billion and $8.1 billion, respectively, reports fe Bureau in Mumbai.

 

Thailand ranks fourth with foreign inflows of $ 3 billion followed by Indonesia which received foreign investment worth $ 2.8 billion. In 2016 so far, the Sensex gained 7.44% and Nifty50 gained 8.73%.

Gr1

Source:

http://www.financialexpress.com/markets/indian-markets/fpi-equity-buys-in-india-touch-5-4-bn-this-year/349325/

US, Europe combined infra spending less than China’s

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Despite a crying need for better infrastructure, investment in it has actually fallen in 10 major economies since the financial crisis, including the US, according to a new study by the McKinsey Global Institute. Meanwhile, China is still going gangbusters on roads, bridges, sewers, and everything else that makes a country run.

“China spends more on economic infrastructure annually than North America and Western Europe combined,” according to the report published Wednesday.

Economists around the world have been arguing that now is a great time to invest in infrastructure because interest rates are super-low and the global economy could use the spending jolt. “Is anyone proud of Kennedy airport?” Harvard University economist Lawrence Summers likes to ask.

The MGI report cites 10 countries where infrastructure spending fell as a share of gross domestic product from 2008 to 2013: the US, UK, Italy, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. The study counts 11 economies, but that’s because it lists the European Union as a separate entity.

In contrast to the widespread declines, the institute says, infrastructure spending grew as a share of GDP in Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Turkey, South Africa and China. The chart from the MGI report shows China’s strength in infrastructure spending. Its bar is the highest. There’s such a thing as too much infrastructure spending, of course. At current rates of investment, China, Japan, and Australia are likely to exceed their needs between now and 2030, the McKinsey & Co-affiliated think tank says. To fund more public infrastructure, the report favours raising user charges such as highway tolls, among other measures.

To encourage more private investment in infrastructure, MGI argues for increasing “regulatory certainty” and giving investors “the ability to charge prices that produce an acceptable risk-adjusted return.”

 

Source:  http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/us-europe-combined-infra-spending-less-than-china-s-116061600030_1.html

India’s e-commerce sector to see $120 billion revenue by 2020: Assocham-Forrester report

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The country’s e-commerce sector is expected to see revenues of USD 120 billion by 2020 from USD 30 billion at the end of last fiscal, a report said.

The increase would be mainly on the back of young demographic profile, rising Internet penetration and relatively better economic performance, the Assocham-Forrester study said.

India’s e-commerce sector saw revenues of USD 30 billion at the end of the financial year 2015-16. It is expected to reach USD 120 billion by 2020, it said.

“While in terms of base, India may be lower than China and other giants like Japan, the Indian rate of growth is way ahead of others. Against India’s annual expansion of 51 per cent, China’s e-commerce is growing at 18 per cent, Japan 11 per cent and South Korea 10 per cent,” the study noted.

The report further said that India has an Internet user base of 400 million in 2016 whereas Brazil has 210 million Internet users and Russia 130 million, among the BRICS nations.

About 75 per cent of the country’s online users are in the age group of 15-34 years since India is one of the youngest demographies globally and one out of every 5 (online user) visits the Indian Railways site, the report said.

In India, about 60-65 per cent of the total e-commerce sales are being generated through smart phones. Branded apparel, accessories, jewellery, gifts, footwear are among the major hits on the e-commerce platforms, it added.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/52172120.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

IMF Sees Rising Debt Challenge as Asia Stays Global Outperformer

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The International Monetary Fund said rising debt levels in major Asian economies have become a significant risk, even as the region remains on track to post solid economic growth.

Asia-Pacific economies as a group will decelerate only slightly, to 5.3 percent this year and next, from 5.4 percent in 2015, the Washington-based fund said in an annual regional report published Tuesday. The IMF last month trimmed its global forecasts, and said the world was more exposed to negative shocks thanks to a prolonged weaker pace of expansion.

In Asia, domestic demand, particularly consumption, should be a key driver, but worsening global conditions and high leverage in the region may curb growth, the fund said.

“Downside risks continue to dominate the economic landscape,” the IMF said. “In particular, the turning of the credit and financial cycles amid high debt poses a significant risk to growth in Asia, especially because debt levels have increased markedly over the past decade across most of the major economies in the region, including China and Japan.”

Downward Spiral

The IMF’s singling out of debt as a growing worry is in line with recent statements. The institution warned in a report last month against what it called a self-reinforcing “spiral” of weakening growth and rising debt that could require a coordinated response by the world’s major economies.

In Asia, the IMF said Tuesday, debt levels are high, while credit growth and corporate issuance have remained strong as companies try to take advantage of still-favorable global liquidity conditions.

The ratio of corporate debt to gross domestic product has risen faster in Asia than anywhere else in the world since 2009, the IMF added, and the measure is particularly elevated in China and South Korea. Household debt is a growing worry in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, the IMF said.

“Although part of the credit growth reflects financial deepening, some growth has been above that implied by fundamentals,” the IMF said. Financial deepening refers to the spreading availability and use of banking.

Reform Refrain

As in previous reports, the IMF called on policy makers to push ahead with structural reforms to raise productivity, including measures to boost consumption in China. The fund also flagged the risk of an over-reliance on monetary or credit policies to hold up demand, particularly if job losses in manufacturing exceed the gains in services.

On Japan, the only developed economy where it anticipates economic contraction next year, the IMF recommended moves to reduce the difference between life-time and non-regular labor contracts to allow for higher wage increases. It also suggested deregulation and a drive to increase female labor market participation.

The IMF said that recent economic policies in Japan — so-called “Abenomics” — have been “supportive,” but added that “durable gains in growth” are yet to be seen.

The fund also warned against an excess reliance on monetary stimulus. The remark comes less than a week after a surprising Bank of Japan decision to hold off on stepping up its monetary expansion jolted markets and led to a surge of the yen against the U.S. dollar.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/imf-sees-rising-debt-challenge-as-asia-stays-global-outperformer