The Govt should shed its current protectionism. Instead, it should go for an open trade policy by slashing import duties and eliminating non-tariff barriers While presenting the Union Budget for 2020-21, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had renewed the commitment of the Modi Government to “Make in India.” She saw this as the most crucial component of the strategy to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25. To achieve this, she targetted doubling of exports from the current over $500 billion to $1 trillion (that includes an increase in farm exports from $40 billion to $100 billion). Faced with a whopping contraction in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by close to 25 per cent during the first quarter, a continuing...
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Category: BoP & Exim policies
For Atmanirbhar Bharat, go for open trade policy
The ‘Make in India’ reverberated all through the speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day address on August 15, 2020. Even before the Corona pandemic, in the Union Budget for 2020-21, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman proclaimed the commitment of Modi government to this laudable goal. This is the most crucial component of the strategy to make India a US$ 5 trillion economy by 2024-25. Faced with a whopping contraction in GDP (gross domestic product) by close to 25% during the first quarter, continuing slide during the second quarter and projected decline for the whole of current year by 5% – 6.5%, US$ 5 trillion target may have lost much of its sheen for now. Nonetheless, the government...
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Protectionism hurts e-commerce
Instead of the extreme steps proposed by a new policy, the government should consider a pragmatic and flexible arrangement to address the concerns on protection of sensitive data With increasing penetration of internet, surging middle-class and focus on customer convenience and affordable pricing, online retail commerce in India has grown at a phenomenal 70 per cent during the last five years reaching about US $40 billion during 2017. This is projected to increase five-fold to US $200 billion by 2026. Much of the growth has been driven by foreign majors such as Amazon,Walmart/Flipkart and so on under a policy notified in 2016-17 which allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the marketplace model of e-commerce. The marketplace is an...
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NDA OVER UPA: NUMBERS WILL SPEAK
In terms of economic growth, the NDA has a distinct edge over UPA. This reality cannot be camouflaged by sheer window-dressing of numbers In 2015, the Narendra Modi Government switched over to generate data on growth in GDP at factor cost using 2011-12 as the base year (instead of the extant practice of base year 2004-05). Under this methodology, growth for the first four years of its stint was 7.4 per cent for 2014-15; 8.2 per cent for 2015-16; 7.1 per cent for 2016-17; 6.7 per cent for 2017-18. Meanwhile, a committee on Real Sector Statistics under Sudipto Mundle, set up by the National Statistical Commission (NSC), has come out with data for the past period (new series) using the new base...
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FDI in retail – go for ‘holistic’ reforms
In budget for 2016-17, the finance minister had announced 100% foreign direct investment [FDI] in food retail subject to retailer selling only food procured from farmers in India and processed locally. After wait for more than a year, the government has now approved an application of Amazon.in for 100% FDI in food retail chain – both on-line sales [e-commerce] and offline [brick-and-mortar]. While, this may signal big boost to reform and liberalization in regard to FDI in retail, the cobweb of policy maze seems to be getting murkier. At the outset, a few words on how the policy dispensation has unfolded over the last decade or so. For the purpose of FDI, the government has classified retail in two broad...
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Trump’s ‘hire local’ juggernaut – smashes Indian IT
An senior official of the Trump Administration has lambasted three leading Indian IT companies viz. Tata Consultancy Services [TCS], Infosys and Cognizant Technologies for resorting to ‘trickery’ for allegedly grabbing most of H1-B visas issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS]. HI-B visas are issued to foreigners who have ‘theoretical’ and ‘technical’ expertise in specialized areas to work in local [read American] companies for temporary period. United States issues 85,000 such visas every year — 65,000 hired from abroad and 20,000 from those enrolled in US universities/colleges. Due to the heavy demand, USCIS which runs the program, receives several time more applications than it can grant and uses an electronic lottery to pick the ones that will go...
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Are Indian IT czars shooting in the mouth?
During the last one-and-a-half decade or so, the Indian I-T [information technology] industry has recorded unprecedented growth propelled mostly by exports. Of this, a disproportionately high share has come from increase in exports to USA. The industry has an aggregate revenue of over US$ 150 billion [2016] of which around US$ 100 billion [or 2/3rd] is contributed by export and the balance US$ 50 billion from domestic source. Within exports, USA alone accounts for over US$ 50 billion. This rapid growth helped all leading players viz. Tata Consultancy Services [TCS], Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant Technologies etc reap a financial bonanza. Even after distributing handsome dividends, they have accumulated monuments of cash running in billions of dollars. Of course, India has gained...
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Can Jaitely balance budget sans oil bonanza?
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General [CAG] tabled in Parliament on March 10, 2017 brings out that in recent years, there has been a sharp increase in the Union excise duty collections, a predominant share of this accounted for by increase in excise revenue on petroleum products. During 2013-14, total excise collection was Rs 169,000 crore of which contribution of petroleum products [POL] was Rs 87,880 crores or 52%. During 2015-16, even as overall excise revenue increased to Rs 287,000 crore, contribution of POL went up to Rs 198,030 crores or 69% of the total [with sin products like tobacco accounting for another 10%, these two categories alone make up 80%]. During this period, there was massive increase...
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Waning exports – go for ‘sustainable’ therapy
If, there is one single area that has given jitters to Modi – government during its 2 years stint, it is exports. Beginning December 2014, exports decreased for 17th consecutive month in April, 2016. This would have taken a serious toll on India’s balance of payments [BoP] but for the oil bonanza [due to slump in crude oil] which led to steep reduction in oil imports more than offsetting its negative impact. To a considerable extent, the slide can be attributed to global economic slow down even as China’s has crash landed from double digits [until 2 years back] to around 6.5-7%; developed countries [other than USA] struggling to sustain their already low growth of well below 3%, US growth...
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PSUs dividend – an order ingrained in archaic mindset
Faced with a massive shortfall in resource mobilization from disinvestment of shares in central public sector undertakings [PSUs] [Rs 40,000 crores] and proceeds from direct taxes [Rs 50,000 crores], Modi – government has issued a diktat to all PSUs to help it avoid slippage in fiscal deficit target of 3.9% of GDP set in the budget for the current year. It has directed them to give a minimum dividend of 30% of profit after tax [PAT] or 30% of government equity whichever is higher. PSUs having substantial free reserves and capability to make good profits on a sustained basis are required to give special dividend and issue bonus shares. As regards their capital expenditure needs, it goads them to increase...
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