by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate finance, Corporate Governance, Economy, News, Politics
By Porisma P. Gogoi,
New Delhi : The government’s move to increase expenditure on food processing, infrastructure, healthcare and rural economy will generate more demand for the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, said industry players.
“The country has been through two muted years of growth after economic reforms like demonetisation and GST (Goods and Services Tax). Hence, from the Union Budget 2018-19, expectation was to see policies and steps to boost growth,” Harsha V. Agarwal, Director, Emami, told IANS.
“Infrastructure, education, healthcare and rural economy are the major beneficiaries from this budget, signalling more job creation and spending power in the hands of the largest population which will automatically help the FMCG sector by generating strong demand,” Agarwal said.
The various measures announced by the government will lead to increase in rural consumption, improve overall rural economy and have a trickling effect on the corporates, according to Sanjana Desai, Head of Business Development, Desai Brothers (Food Division – Mother’s Recipe).
Desai Brothers owns and manages the brand Mother’s Recipe — a food company which makes a vast range of pickles, pastes and ready-to-cook mixes.
“The Union Budget 2018-19 is largely positive for FMCG. As anticipated by the FMCG sector, government’s thrust on boosting the rural economy is welcome,” said Desai.
“Increased allocation under various schemes such as MNERGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act), rural infrastructure and others will not only increase rural income through employment generation by these projects but will also improve connectivity giving a boost to rural/agri businesses,” she added.
In the last full budget just presented by Finance Minster Arun Jaitley before the 2019 general elections, the government announced that it would spend more on agriculture, livelihood and infrastructure in the rural area and increased funds for crop insurance, rural roads, irrigation besides setting higher targets for farm credit.
With total budgetary outlay of Rs 2,01,933 crore for agriculture and rural development, the government has emphasised on development of food processing, dairy and fishery sectors to enhance farmers’ income.
The industry players also appreciated the Finance Minister’s move to reduce the corporate tax rate for all companies with turnover of up to Rs 250 crore, up from Rs 50 crore.
“We welcome government’s move to reduce corporate tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent for companies with revenue of up to Rs 250 crore. This initiative will give a boost to company revenue and allow businesses like us to invest more in expansion leading to employment generation, which is a primary focus for the government,” said Oliver Mirza, Managing Director and CEO, Dr Oetker India.
Dr Oetker India is a German packaged food company which acquired the Fun Foods brand in 2008.
“This move will also provide a great stimulus to the government’s initiatives like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Startup India’. Tax benefits combined with increased allocation to the food processing sector will give a great impetus to the overall FMCG industry,” Mirza said.
(Porisma P. Gogoi can be contacted at porisma.g@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Finance, Markets, News
Mumbai : Ahead of the Union Budget 2018-19 presentation by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament, the key Indian equity indices on Thursday traded with appreciable gains.
According to market observers, expectation of sops from the Union Budget, along with positive Asian markets and healthy buying in consumer durables, capital goods and banking stocks, lifted investors’ risk-taking appetite.
Around 10 a.m., the wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) traded higher by 63.35 points or 0.57 per cent at 11,091.05 points.
On the BSE, the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), which reclaimed the 36,000-mark at the opening, traded at 36,188.50 points — up 223.48 points or 0.62 per cent from its previous close.
The Sensex has so far touched a high of 36,226.97 points and a low of 36,021.88 points during intra-day trade.
The BSE market breadth was bullish with 1,495 advances and 636 declines.
“Indian indices opened in the green following Asian Indices which are trading in the positive territory,” Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, told IANS.
“Fertilisers, consumer durables, automobile, oil and gas, banking are among the key sectors which will be carefully watched ahead of Budget 2018-19 to be presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley later today,” he added.
On Wednesday, the benchmark indices closed in the negative territory on the back of negative global cues and heavy selling pressure in healthcare, consumer durables and capital goods stocks.
The Nifty50 fell by 21.95 points or 0.20 per cent to close at 11,027.70 points, while the Sensex closed lower by 68.71 points or 0.19 per cent at 35,965.02 points.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News, Politics
New Delhi : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said India is poised to become $5 trillion economy soon from $2.5 trillion now.
“We are now a $ 2.5 trillion economy, and we are firmly on path to achieve 8 per cent plus growth soon,” Jaitley said while delivering his Union Budget 2018-19 speech here.
“From ease of doing business, our govt has moved to ease of living for the poor and middle class,” he said.
“We hope to grow at 7.2% to 7.5% in the second half of 2017-18,” he added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News, Politics
* No change in personal income tax rates for salaried class
* Tax buoyancy more than expected, thanks to greater compliance
* Demonetisation was received by honest tax-payers as ‘Imaandari ka Utsav’
* Measures on rationalising long-term capital gains
* Companies with turnover of upto Rs 250 crore to be taxed at 25 per cent
* Government has identified 372 specific business reform actions to improve ease of doing business; Evaluation of performance under this programme to be based on user feedback
* Revised fiscal deficit estimate for 2017-18 is 3.5 per cent of GDP, fiscal deficit of 3.3 per cent expected for 2018-19
* 12.6 per cent growth in direct taxes in 2017-18; 18.7 per cent growth in indirect taxes in 2017-18
* 100 per cent tax deduction for the first five years to companies registered as farmer producer companies with a turnover of Rs 100 crore and above
* Revised emoluments for President – Rs 5 lakh, Vice President – Rs 4 lakh and Governors – Rs 3.5 lakh; Automatic revision of MPs’ emoluments every five years, indexed to inflation
* UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme will connect 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads
* Rs 80,000 crore disinvestment target for 2018-19, target for 2017-18 has been exceeded and will reach Rs 1 lakh crore
* Government insurance companies to be merged into a single entity, and subsequently listed in the stock exchange, as part of the disinvestment programme
* National Logistics Portal as a single online window to link all stakeholders, to be developed by Department of Commerce
* Foundation stone of the bullet train was laid in September 2017. An institute is coming up in Vadodara to train the manpower required for the high speed railway projects
* 12,000 wagons, 5160 coaches and 700 locomotives being procured. There is significant achievements of physical targets by railways
* Road construction has scaled new heights, confident that 9000 km highway construction will be complete by 2017-18
* National Committee chaired by PM, including CMs, Gandhians and representatives from various walks of life for year-long commemoration of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi
* Rs 1,48,528 crore capital expenditure for Indian Railways for 2018-19
* All trains to be progressively provided with Wi-Fi, CCTV and other state-of-the-art amenities
* NITI Aayog will establish a National Programme to direct efforts in the area of Artificial Intelligence towards national development
* Five lakh Wi-Fi hotspots to be set up in rural areas to provide easy internet access
* Government to take all steps to eliminate use of cryptocurrencies which are being used to fund illegitimate transactions
* Individual enterprises too to have unique ID
* Government plans to construct two crore more toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission
* Rs 7,148 crore outlay for textile sector in 2018-19
* One government medical college to be ensured for every three parliamentary constituencies by upgrading 24 district-level colleges
* Hard work of farmers resulted in a record production of more than 275 million tonnes of foodgrain and about 300 million tonnes of horticultural produce
* Not only focussing on ‘Ease of Doing Business’ but also ‘Ease of Living’
* 70 lakh formal jobs have been created this year. Government will contribute 12 per cent of the wages as EPF in all sectors for the next three years
* Mass formalisation of MSME sector is happening after demonetisation and GST
* Have decided to take healthcare protection to a new aspirational level. Launching a flagship National Health Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, benefiting approximately 50 crore people
* Providing Rs 5 lakh per family per year for medical reimbursement, under National Health Protection Scheme. This will be world’s largest health protection scheme
* Government is slowly but steadily progressing towards universal health coverage
* Air pollution in Delhi NCR is a cause for concern; special scheme will be implemented to support Haryana, Punjab, UP and Delhi NCT to address this and subsidise machinery for management of crop residue
* Scheme for revitalising school infrastructure, with an allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore over four years. Called RISE – Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education
* Eklavya schools to be started for Scheduled Tribe population
* By 2022, every block with more than 50 per cent ST population and at least 20,000 tribal people will have ‘Ekalavya’ school at par with Navodaya Vidyalas
* Integrated B.Ed programme to be initiated for teachers to improve quality of teachers
* India is firmly on path to achieve 8 per cent plus growth
* Propose to raise institutional credit for agriculture to Rs 11 lakh Crore for 2018-19
* Rs 14.34 lakh crore to be spent for rural infrastructure
* Eight crore free gas connections to women under UJJWALA and 4 crore electricity connections to the poor under Saubhagya Yojana
* Fishery and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund and Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Fund to be set up with corpus of Rs 10,000 crore
* Restructured National Bamboo Mission to be launched with allocation of Rs 1,290 crore to promote sector in a holistic manner
* Rs 500 crore for Operation Green
* Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets
* 470 APMCs have been connected to #eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March 2018
* Minimum Support Price of all crops shall be increased to at least 1.5 times that of the production cost
* From ease of doing business, government has moved to ease of living for the poor and middle class
* Allocation in for Ministry of Food Processing is being doubled; specialised agro-processing and financial institutions to be promoted by the government
* India now a $2.5 trillion economy and firmly on path to achieve 8% plus growth soon
* Will focus on agriculture and rural economy, health, infra, senior citizens
* Hope to grow at 7.2 per cent-7.5 per cent in the second half of 2017-18
* Allocating natural resources in a more transparent manner, there is a premium on honesty now
* Government led by PM Modi has implemented a series of fundamental structural reforms
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, Markets, News
By Rohit Vaid,
Mumbai : Announcements on capital expenditure, along with policy reforms and expected sops from the the Union Budget 2018-19, will determine the trajectory of the Indian equity markets in the coming week.
According to market observers, other themes for the trade week starting on January 29, will be macro-economic growth and select industrial production data points coupled with stock-specific movement due to the ongoing earnings result season.
“The budget remains critical, being the first one after GST (Goods and Services Tax) implementation and the last full year budget before the general elections in 2019,” Devendra Nevgi, Founder and Principal Partner, Delta Global Partners, told IANS.
“The balancing act for the Finance Minister on reining in the fiscal deficit, rural populism and growth-boosting measures (private capex) remain the key themes that will be watched closely.”
Parliament’s budget session will kick off with the presentation of the Economic Survey 2017-18 on Monday, January 29, followed by the Union Budget 2018-19 on February 1.
“With crude oil prices surging, fiscal deficit projections in the upcoming budget will be keenly watched. The budget is expected to dictate the future direction of markets from here on,” D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director of SMC Investments and Advisors, told IANS.
Apart from the budget, the week ahead will be heavily influenced by Q3 corporate earnings and the direction of foreign fund flows. Companies like HDFC, EIH, IndianOil, Piramal Enterprises, TVS Motor Company, ICICI Bank, L&T, NTPC, Vedanta, Titan Company, Bajaj Auto and Hindalco Industries are expected to announce their quarterly results in the coming week.
“Next week, till the Union Budget announcement, markets are expected to be driven by corporate earnings and the buoyant global markets as FPI (foreign portfolio investors) flows remain strong,” Nevgi said.
Besides quarterly results, macro-economic data points like GDP figures for 2017-18, Index of Eight Core Industries (ECI) figures and the country’s fiscal deficit data up to December will be keenly watched by investors.
In addition, monthly automobile sales figures and the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) manufacturing and services data will become other major sentiment drivers.
On the currency front, the rupee’s strength will be arrested by higher crude oil prices, “as it will make rupee less attractive”.
“Next week, we expect USD/INR to trade within a range of 63.30 to 63.80. Rupee is expected to remain weak against the euro and pound,” Anindya Banerjee, Deputy Vice President for Currency and Interest Rates with Kotak Securities, told IANS.
The Indian currency had strengthened by 30 paise during the week ended January 25, to close at Rs 63.55 against the US dollar from its last week’s close at Rs 63.85.
In terms of technical charts, the underlying uptrend in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty is expected to continue.
“Technically, with the Nifty surging higher to new record highs, the underlying intermediate uptrend remains intact,” Deepak Jasani, Head – Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.
“Further upsides are likely once the immediate resistances of 11,110 points are taken out. Weakness could emerge if the supports of 10,881 points are broken.”
Last week, key indices made gains on the back of revival in corporate earnings, along with the country’s healthy economic growth outlook projected by the International Monetary Fund and massive inflow of foreign funds.
Consequently, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange closed at 36,050.44 points — up 538.86 points or 1.52 per cent from its previous week’s close.
Similarly, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 174.95 points or 1.60 per cent to 11,069.65 points.
(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in)
—IANS
