by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Investing, Muslim World
Amman : President of Jordan Businessmen Association (JBA) Hamdi Tabbaa said that establishing a Joint Jordanian-Belgian Business Council in the near future will open new horizons for economic cooperation between the two countries.
In a meeting that took place on Tuesday with Belgium Ambassador to Jordan Hendrik van de Velde, Tabaa highlighted investment projects and advantages in the Kingdom, calling at the same time for benefiting from Belgian expertise, especially in the medical and energy fields.
For his part, Ambassador Van de Velde commended Jordan’s role in the Middle East, especially with regard to Syrian and Iraqi reconstruction projects and Jordanian companies’ ability to benefit from those projects, Petra reported.
He called for taking advantages of the Simplified Rules of Origin Agreement and promoting trade and economic relations between the two countries.
A Belgian food industries exhibition will be held soon in Jordan, the ambassador announced.
It is noteworthy that the trade exchange between Jordan and Belgium amounted to $128 million in 2016, $4 million of which were Jordanian exports from the sectors of clothing, fertilizers, and metals.
—SM/IINA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Investing, News, Politics
Arun Jaitley
New York : The use of discretion by ministers in investment needed to be withdrawn and left to market mechanisms, while the world can expect a bigger and cleaner Indian economy in the coming years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday.
Addressing a gathering here at Columbia University, he said that when the NDA government came to power in 2014, global investors had lost confidence in India due to rising corruption and scandals.A
Moreover, foreign direct investment (FDI) faced hurdles as the “doors were too narrow”, the approval mechanism was slow and tax legislations unclear, he said.
“It was quite challenging to convince investors all over the world,” he added.
The rise of corruption was mainly because of the “extraordinary discretion” vested with the government.
Earlier, he said here that the Indian government has been able to change domestic public opinion in favour of inviting foreign investment into sectors of production that were earlier considered out of bounds both for ideological as well as security reasons.
“We have been able to invest FDI in almost every sector of the economy,” Jaitley said on Monday night at an investors roundtable jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the US-India Business Council.
“Areas that were earlier considered sacrosanct, like defence manufacturing, we have been able to convince public opinion that it is better to invite foreign expertise to set up manufacturing in India,” he said.
“Suddenly we find a lot of joint ventures coming up (with foreign firms) for defence investment.”
Jaitley is on a week-long official visit to the US during which he will attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to be held in Washington.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Investing, Marketing Basics, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Technology
New Delhi : In a bid to facilitate better adoption of e-signatures in the country, Adobe on Wednesday announced investment on integration of Aadhaar-based authentication in its e-signature solution “Adobe Sign”.
Citing the results of the recently conducted “Adobe E-signatures Indian Market Study”, the company said the market for e-signatures in India was growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 57 per cent and was expected to cross over 90 million transactions by 2020.
“With around 30 per cent market penetration and about 70 per cent of companies yet to start their e-signature journey, the Aadhaar-based authentication built in ‘Adobe Sign’ is the industry’s first solution to make e-signatures legally binding in India,” said Kulmeet Bawa, Managing Director, South Asia, Adobe.
“This legal validity will spur adoption among businesses that have so far had to limit the use of e-signatures to internal use,” Bawa said in a statement.
Aadhaar-based e-signature in “Adobe Sign” is aimed at helping organisations to eliminate their dependency on wet signatures and allow digital validation of users’ legal identity.
Adobe also announced the rollout of a new local data centre in the country as many Indian businesses indicated their preference to adopt a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution which is hosted locally.
“India is a strategic focus for Adobe and our engineering labs are committed to make deep investments to deliver innovative and customised solutions to address the needs of our customers here,” noted Abhigyan Modi, Vice President, Engineering, Adobe Document Cloud.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Commodities, Commodities News, Commodity Market, Corporate, Corporate Reports, Finance, Investing, News
New Delhi : The Adani Group’s entire A$3.5 billion (Rs 178 billion) debt-funded ‘investment’ in Australia is gravely at risk, the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said on Monday.
In a new report it details how Adani’s Abbot Point Coal Terminal has excessive financial leverage, negative shareholders equity and runs the risk of becoming a stranded asset if Adani’s Carmichael mine does not get a $1 billion Australian subsidy.
The Abbot Point Coal Terminal is due for a $1.5 billion debt refinancing next year and a cumulative debt refinancing of $2.11 billion by 2020.
Currently, operating at just over 50 per cent capacity, the Abbot Point Coal Terminal needs the Carmichael mine to fill the gap created as its current take-or-pay contracts progressively expire.
“Securing this refinancing is going to be a real challenge, not the least because the port value has been tied to the success of the Carmichael coal mine proposal which is itself yet to secure funding and which the ‘big four’ Australian banks have refused to touch,” an official statement quoting report co-author Tim Buckley said.
Buckley’s the IEEFA’s Director of Energy Finance Studies, Australasia.
“The potential for a loss of up to $1.5bn on any decision to walk away from Carmichael mine and rail proposal, explains why the Adani Group has been so focused on securing Australian tax payers money and royalty holidays to subsidise his loss making ventures,” he said.
“To the extent able to be analysed from Australian Securities and Investments Commission records, Adani’s entire mine, rail and port operation in Australia looks to be 100 per cent debt financed and shareholders funds now tally an unprecedented, negative $458 million combined. The value at stake for the Adani Group’s Carmichael mine proposal is far bigger than previously understood,” Buckley added.
Whilst Adani continues to search for overseas project funding, the report, “House of Cards: The Escalating Financial Risk of Adani’s Abbot Point Coal Terminal”, the report traces events that make the Carmichael project an even greater financial risk.
The events include Adani’s major proposed off-take coal customer, Adani Power Ltd’s 4.6 GW power plant at Mundra in Gujarat, is financially distressed and its equity is for sale for just Re 1 but has no buyers so far.
India’s thermal coal imports have continued the downward trend of the last two years and are down 13 per cent year-to-date in 2017 compared to the prior year.
And, in the light of new solar infrastructure projects delivering electricity at prices now 20 per cent below many Indian thermal power plant tariffs, financial analysts don’t see any imported coal demand to justify more expensive seaborne supplies.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, News, Politics
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das
Ranchi : Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das will visit Japan and the Czech Republic from October 8-14 along with a high-level delegation to woo investors, an official said on Monday.
During the visit, Das and his team would be participating in a three-day engineering fair in the Czech Republic.
In Japan, the delegation would witness road shows in Tokyo and Osaka.
Sunil Barnwal, Secretary, Industry and Information and Technology, Jharkhand, met Japanese Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu and Czech Ambassador Milan Howarka besides other officials ahead of the visit.
Barnwal said that Japan and the Czech Republic were partner countries during the Momentum Jharkhand Summit earlier this year.
This visit would enable the Japanese companies to know about Jharkhand and also encourage investment and industrial growth in the state.
The Japanese envoy said that Jharkhand was the state with the most potential in the dream of a “New India”. He said that there was tremendous potential of growth and that Japan would be extending full cooperation to the delegation during the visit.
The envoy of Czech Republic said he was optimistic about Das’ visit. He said that many nations and renowned companies from across the world would be participating in the engineering show.
Officials of the Indian Embassy in the Czech Republic said final stages of preparation were on for the meetings and interactions during the visit.
Barnwal said Jharkhand would also have its pavilion at the international engineering show in which the investment potential, art and culture, and specialty of the state would be showcased.
—IANS
