- Monday, April 29, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
HERE are news in brief on Indian economy and business for Thursday, April 11, 2024:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday raised India’s GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal to seven per cent, from 6.7 per cent earlier, saying the robust growth will be driven by public and private sector investment and improvement in consumer demand. In its April edition of the Asian Development Outlook, ADB said India would remain “a major growth engine” in the Asia and Pacific region. For the 2025-26 fiscal, ADB has projected India’s growth at 7.2 per cent. Growth will be robust despite moderating in FY2024 and FY2025, it said. Strong investment drove GDP growth in the 2022-23 fiscal as consumption was muted, ADB said.
Silicon Valley is super excited about India, whose leadership has shown a commitment towards entrepreneurship, Anita Manwani, TiE president has said. The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Silicon Valley is a nonprofit organisation in the US devoted to entrepreneurs in various industries. “I am super excited and I think Silicon Valley is super excited because we have at the helm of India’s leadership a clear commitment to one entrepreneurship to open business with initiatives like the GIFT city, with initiatives that are making investments and repatriation of funds back to the United States, I would say a little easier than what it was before,” Manwani told PTI in an interview.
A high-powered US trade delegation will visit India later this month to explore opportunities in the country’s huge agribusiness sector and further promote American products among India’s rising middle class. “India represents a growth economy for the US agribusinesses seeking to capture an increasing share of the household food purchases in the fifth-largest economy in the world,” said under secretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affair Alexis Taylor. From April 22 to 25, Taylor will lead a US Department of Agriculture agribusiness trade mission to Delhi. “India’s rising middle-class consumers’ familiarity with American food products and increased purchasing power is a real opportunity for US producers,” Taylor said.
The seventh round of negotiations for the India-Peru Trade Agreement concluded in New Delhi on Thursday. The recent talks made significant progress towards fostering closer economic ties between both countries. The talks, which began on April 8, saw delegates from both the countries engaging in fruitful discussions aimed at understanding each other’s priorities and concerns, with a shared goal of ensuring mutual respect and benefit. “The history of India-Peru diplomatic relations dates back to the 1960s” said Sunil Barthwal, India’s commerce secretary at the starting of the negotiations. He further added that bilateral discussions held during the sidelines of the 9th CII India-LAC Conclave in August last year played a key role in resuming the negotiations.
Online food delivery platform Swiggy on Thursday said it will support employees on pet care and adoption with the introduction of a ‘Paw-ternity’ policy. Girish Menon, chief human resource officer, Swiggy said, “Building on our gender-neutral parental policy introduced in 2020, which provides substantial paid leave for primary and secondary caregivers, in addition to bonding leaves, and time off for adoption, surrogacy, miscarriage and IVF, we are now expanding our definition of parenthood to include pet parents as well. And that’s why, starting today, we’re announcing the Swiggy Paw-ternity Policy for all full-time employees”. Under the policy, employees will receive an additional paid day off (in addition to their annual leave entitlement) to welcome their new pet companions home. The policy was introduced on National Pet Day, which falls on April 11.
(With agencies)
