- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are news in brief related to Indian economy and business for Tuesday, May 30, 2023:
India’s urban unemployment soared during the Covid-19 pandemic, reaching a high of almost 21 per cent in the April-June 2020 quarter, while wages plummeted, Reuters reported. While the unemployment rate has gone down since, fewer full-time jobs have become available. According to economists, more and more job-seekers, especially the young, are looking for low-paid casual work or falling back on unreliable self-employment, although the broader Indian economy is seen growing at 6.5 per cent in the financial year ending in March 2024. “Unemployment is only the tip of the iceberg. What remains hidden beneath is the serious crisis of underemployment and disguised unemployment,” said Radhicka Kapoor, fellow at economic research agency ICRIER.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday said it conceptualised a lightweight and portable payment system that will be independent of conventional technologies and can be operated from anywhere by a bare minimum staff in order to be prepared to face such extreme and volatile situations such as natural calamities and war, ANI reported. According to the RBI’s annual report of 2022-23, the payment system is expected to operate on minimalistic hardware and software and would be made active only on a need basis. It added it would process transactions that are critical to ensure stability of the economy such as government and market related transactions.
India is set to begin a pilot project this week to establish itself as an electronics repair hub by loosening cumbersome import-export rules, a move that could draw tech majors such as Flex to expand such operations in the country, Reuters reported. Prime minister Narendra Modi has promoted electronics manufacturing in India and attracted big companies such as Apple and Xiaomi but the country still lacks an industry for repair outsourcing which is estimated to be worth $100 billion (£80.7 billion) internationally and currently dominated by nations such as China and Malaysia.
The mutual fund industry needs to form an ethics committee as the biggest risk to the growth in the industry is individual misdemeanour, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch said on Tuesday, PTI reported. “Today where we are as an industry, we have a very strong foundation. Now is the time to build a superstructure on top of this. I think the only thing that is a risk to the industry is individual misconduct…if we find it, unfortunately as a regulator we have to step in,” Buch said at an event.
Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday chaired the second meeting of the apex monitoring authority of the National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT), ANI reported. The meeting, which saw participation from 16 states, was also attended by federal ministers Piyush Goyal and Sarbananda Sonowal besides senior officials from various ministries. They reviewed the progress of projects under the NICDIT. It aims to create greenfield smart industrial cities with sustainable and tech-enabled services.
An investors roadshow was held by India’s ministry of development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER) and it received interest with over 200 business-to-government (B2G) meetings being organised in a single day, ANI reported. Besides a significant number of investors, the event also saw key policymakers and government officials from the northeastern region grace the occasion. “With the investor interest in the region, the North Eastern region has achieved several industrial landmarks. The central and state governments and facilitators such as DoNER have together discussed several investible opportunities with businesses. Our interactions with businesses have revealed several welcoming and proactive experiences around North East,” said Lok Ranjan, secretary, MDoNER, First Mumbai Investor Roadshow.
