With huge trade imbalance in favour of China, India on Monday, 16 September, strongly pitched for market access and invited Chinese investments in infrastructure sector to address the deficit. "We have in mind Chinese involvement, we encourage and welcome and seek for working closely in infrastructure in our country and at the same time, we are looking for greater market access in Chinese pharma and IT sector. This will provide more balance in trade between the two countries," External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said. The Minister was speaking at the inauguration of the first India China Media Forum. "This matter (trade imbalance) was of high importance during Premier Li's visit, even as we work for balance of trade, investments will significantly compensate to some extent the importance of sustainable balance of trade," he said. By the end of 2011, India's trade deficit with China was $27 billion, and according to Chinese trade figures released in January, it expanded to $29 billion by 2012. The Minister said this issue was very important for "not only our economic exchanges but also our working together on many global issues and closer cooperation. I believe this is happening in many areas such as global trade regimes and climate change." (PTI)
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Expecting an increase in revenue from service tax, the Finance Ministry may set-up a new anti-evasion and intelligence unit to check leakage of any indirect tax. The issue of creating such a separate unit had come up for discussion during a recent meeting of Chief Commissioners and Directors General of Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax. It was recommended during the meet that the mandate of Directorate General (service tax), based in Mumbai, should be enhanced and it should be assigned the work relating to intelligence and anti-evasion, according to the minutes of the meeting. A proposal in this regard has already been submitted to the Finance Ministry. The Directorate General of Service Tax coordinates between the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) and central excise commissionerates. It also monitors the collection and the assessment of service tax. During the two-day meet, a group on 'Way Forward; Service Tax' had suggested creation of a separate service tax intelligence organisation and also creation of specialised groups under service tax commissionerates. "Recommendations on administrative side include creation of four new service tax zones and 15 new service tax commissionerate and also audit and appeal commissionerate. "The group also highlighted the high pendency of adjudications in the service tax commissionerate and recommended four posts of commissioners (adjudication)," it said. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who inaugurated the conference on 17 July, had noted that service tax revenue is bound to increase in future as it has shown steady growth so far. The proposed organisation, if comes into force, may be assigned a task of collecting intelligence related to service tax evasion and disseminate it among various field units and agencies, official sources said. At present, the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) is entrusted with the task of intelligence gathering and taking action against both the central excise and service tax evaders. Besides, the Directorate General of Revenue Intelligence (DGRI) is looking after the work of customs duty evasion. The Finance Ministry has set indirect tax, comprising central excise, service tax and customs, collection target of Rs 5.65 lakh crore for 2013-14, up from Rs 4.73 lakh crore in the last fiscal. Taking a stern measure against such defaulters, the Finance Ministry has decided to go after about 12 lakh service tax assesses who had stopped filing returns. There are 17 lakh registered assesses under the service tax. There are over 100 services including outdoor catering, restaurant and travel by air among others which attract service tax.(PTI)
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The Income Tax Department of India has written to another 35,000 people this week, asking them to file returns and pay dues."As part of a massive exercise to identify high risk non-filers of income tax returns and ask them to file returns and pay taxes thereon, the Income Tax Department has sent letters to another batch of 35,000 non-filers this week," the Finance Ministry said in a statement Friday, 13 September.With this, the department has issued letters in 0.245 million cases. It has identified 1.2 million people who do not file returns and is taking follow-up action on them."As a result of this exercise, 3,44,365 returns have been received from the target segment. Such persons have also paid self assessment tax amounting to Rs 57.7 million and advance tax of Rs 40.8 million," it said.The department now proposes to extend this exercise to persons who have conducted high-value transactions during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 fiscal years, it added.The Finance Ministry is also developing a dedicated module on the e-filing portal which will give individual taxpayers details of returns not filed, ITR-V not submitted and demand not paid, among others, as a step towards greater transparency.The government plans to collect over Rs 6,680 billions from direct taxes in the current fiscal, up from Rs 5,650 billions in the previous fiscal.(PTI)
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India's foreign exchange reserves declined by $685.1 million to $274.81 billion in the week ended 30 August due to a dip in the foreign currency assets, the Reserve Bank said on 13 September.During the year-on-year period, the reserves fell by a whopping $17.239 billion, the RBI data showed, as the months beginning from June saw heavy intervention by the apex bank in the forex market to prop the rupee, which shed 28 per cent before the reporting week since the beginning of FY'14.The rupee appreciated by over 4 per cent against the dollar since the new RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan assumed office on 4 September.Foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the reserves, dropped by a $656.5 million to $246.745 billion for the week ended 30 August, the Reserve Bank said.FCAs, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of the non-US currencies, such as the euro, pound and yen, held in the reserves.However, during the week, the gold reserves remained unchanged at $21.724 billion, the central bank said, adding the special drawing rights (SDRs) declined $19.6 million to $4.355 billion.India's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund fell by $9 million to $1.981 billion in the week under review, the data showed.(PTI)
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Months of anticipation will come to an end next week when the Federal Reserve finally says whether it will start to rein in its massive stimulus of the economy, which has flooded financial markets with some $2.75 trillion over the past five years, supercharging returns on everything from stocks to junk bonds.But for all the concerns that the reduced presence of such a giant asset buyer would be calamitous for investors, it appears equity and bond markets are poised to take next week's Fed decision largely in stride - provided the central bank doesn't surprise with the size of its move or shock in some other way.The Fed has telegraphed its intentions to pare back its monthly purchases of $85 billion in bonds at its two-day meeting that ends next Wednesday. The scale of the tapering and what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke might say at his press conference are key here, but the steady messaging in the last few months means next week probably won't see carnage in the markets.Investors have already done a lot of work in absorbing the Fed's message. Benchmark bond yields are now hovering near two-year highs, while stocks have edged off highs reached in early August, removing some of the froth that had started to concern some investment strategists."The Fed already got tapering without actually tapering," said Daniel Heckman, senior fixed income strategist at US Bank Wealth Management in Kansas City, Missouri.Key measures of volatility and futures positioning show there is not much fear. The CBOE Volatility Index, the market's favoured gauge of Wall Street's anxiety, hovered around 14 on Friday, 13 September, a level associated with calm markets.The Fed has said it would wind down its program if it is confident that the economy is improving, particularly that the jobless rate is heading lower. If it delays any action, it could raise concerns that it fears economic growth is going to be too anemic without the Fed's help.Recent data has been mixed, with August jobs and retail sales data falling short of expectations. Consumer sentiment has fallen in part due to rising interest rates.That's prompted analysts to issue only modest forecasts for the reduced buying. A Reuters poll showed a consensus for the program's $85 billion monthly pace to be cut by $10 billion, less than earlier estimates.However, the current low volatility means the Fed runs the risk of spooking markets if it moves too quickly or surprises with its intentions."The Fed needs to move from being aggressively stimulative to merely very stimulative," said Leo Grohowski, chief investment officer at BNY Mellon Wealth Management in New York. "Markets are less prepared for it to do more, and if it does you might see a return to defensive areas."In May, after Bernanke spoke about potentially slowing stimulus this year, the S&P 500 fell 7.5 per cent. The index is unlikely to see a similar decline on any surprise next week, with many analysts citing its 50-day moving average as support. Currently, the index is 0.7 per cent above that level.Reducing Risk Still, investors have been taking steps to reduce risks ahead of such an important announcement. Trading in options of the S&P 500 tracking exchange traded fund - the SPDRs - was dominated by bearish put buying. Put contracts give a holder a right to sell a security by a given date at a certain price, and are generally used to hedge against declines.A total of 1.16 million puts and 559,000 calls changed hands in the SPY fund on Thursday, a ratio of 2.08 to 1, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert. That ratio is above the 22-day moving average of 1.64."As we head into the weekend and the Fed meeting next week, traders are starting to hedge their long equity positions," said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade.Michael Mullaney, who oversees $10.7 billion as chief investment officer at Fiduciary Trust Co in Boston, said his firm was pulling back because of the uncertainty."We don't want to get aggressive for a while; there are just too many uncertainties to get through before we add more risk," he said, also citing seasonal issues and government budget policy as overhangs.That sentiment prevailed among many investors in August, resulting in a 3.1 per cent loss for the S&P that month, the worst monthly performance in a year. That decline helped restrain S&P valuations, with the forward price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 currently at 14.6, according to Thomson Reuters data, in line with a historic average of 15.Sectors tied to the pace of economic growth have been among the biggest beneficiaries to the Fed's policy, with both the financial and consumer discretionary groups up more than 20 per cent this year, outpacing the S&P 500's 18-per cent rise. Any surprise from the Fed could hit those groups the hardest."Those economically sensitive groups would pullback the most, and housing is at the top of any list of vulnerable sectors," said BNY's Grohowski, who oversees about $175 billion in client assets.Housing stocks have performed well recently, rising 6.3 per cent in September, but remain more than 16 per cent below a peak reached in May. The sector could weaken further if the Fed takes any steps that lead to a rise in interest rates."Both stocks and bonds will like it if the Fed tapers $10 billion only in Treasuries. If it pares down on its mortgage-backed security purchases, we're very worried about what that will do to the housing market," said Mullaney.The Fed is expected to maintain its current level of purchases of mortgage securities, focusing instead on pulling back on its $45 billion in monthly buys of Treasury notes. Anticipation of this has pushed yields on the 10-year Treasury note higher for five straight months.Still, blistering demand for Verizon's record $49 billion bond deal this week, together with a solid reception for the government's $65 billion in debt supply this week, signaled investors might have grown less wary of reduced stimulus.Hurting Emerging MarketsIn the currency market, an aggressive Fed could lift the US dollar "by pushing rates up at the long end, making U.S. yields more attractive, and at the short end as well, making Japanese investors, among others, worry that hedging costs could go up quicker than expected," said Steven Englander, head of currency strategy at CitiFX, a division of Citigroup, in New York.Emerging markets were hardest-hit once the Fed started to lean in the direction of cutting stimulus, with sharp selloffs in debt and equity markets around the world. Some markets have since recovered some losses, but investors have been hedging against any Fed shock that could hit those markets.Mike Tosaw, financial advisor at RCM Financial Services, an investor advisor in Chicago, said his firm has a put position on the iShares China Large-Cap ETF."Now is definitely not the time to take it off because what happens with the FOMC meeting next week could have a ripple effect on global markets," Tosaw said.While the Fed will be the primary market driver next week, investors will also look to quarterly results from FedEx Corp , viewed as a proxy for economic activity, and software giant Oracle Corp. The market will also see data on August housing starts and existing home sales, and the monthly Philadelphia Fed business index.(Reuters)
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All four men convicted of raping and murdering a 23-year-old woman in Delhi were sentenced to death on Friday, 13 September nine months after a crime whose savagery triggered furious protests across India and rare national debate about violence against women. "Everybody got the death penalty," defence lawyer A.P. Singh told reporters outside the Delhi courtroom, where dozens of police had formed a barricade to keep crowds back. One of the four men sentenced to death by hanging, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, was dragged out of the court crying. The victim, who was raped for an hour and tortured with an iron rod on a moving bus, became a symbol of the dangers women face in a country where a rape is reported on average every 21 minutes and acid attacks and cases of molestation are common. "This has shocked the collective conscience of society," Judge Yogesh Khanna told the court, referring to the attack. The four men were sentenced to death despite their lawyers' pleas to ignore popular and political pressure for a penalty handed down in only the "rarest of rare" cases. Lawyer A.P. Singh, who represented two of the convicts in the trial, said hours before the sentencing that it would be "based on the emotions of the people". "This sentencing is under political pressure," he said. The sentencing capped a seven-month trial, often held behind closed doors, that was punctuated dramatically by a fifth defendant hanging himself in his jail cell. A sixth, who was under 18 at the time of the attack, was earlier sentenced to three years detention, the maximum allowed under juvenile law. It was one of the biggest tests in years of India's paradoxical attitude towards the death penalty. The country's judges hand down, on average, 130 death sentences every year but India has executed just three people in the past 17 years. Despite its apparent reluctance to carry out the sentences, last year India voted against a U.N. draft resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions. In November, India ended what many human rights groups had interpreted as an undeclared moratorium on capital punishment when it executed a man convicted for the 2008 militant attack on the city of Mumbai. Three months later, it hanged a Kashmiri separatist for a 2001 militant attack on parliament. "In the past year, India has made a full-scale retreat from its previous principled rejection of the death penalty," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. The hanging of the two militants came after a seven-year gap in executions, the last being a man who was convicted of raping and killing a schoolgirl in the city of Kolkata. Prosecutors had called for the "harshest punishment" to be given to Sharma, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta, and unemployed Mukesh Singh for last December's murder to signal that such attacks cannot be tolerated. The four men were found guilty of luring the woman onto a bus, raping and torturing her with a metal bar and then throwing her naked and bleeding onto the road. She died two weeks later. Violent protests exploded in several cities after the crime, a reaction commentators and sociologists said reflected a deep well of frustration that many urban Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues. The government, seen as out of touch with the aspirations of the burgeoning urban middle class, was caught off guard by the protests. Divided On DeathThe Delhi case led to the introduction of tougher rape laws in March, and for the first time open conversation about gender crime in television debates, social media and even Bollywood. Still, sex crimes remain commonplace in India, and social commentators say patriarchal attitudes towards women have not been diluted by more than a decade of rapid economic growth. Comments on social media websites and elsewhere ahead of the sentencing suggested that popular opinion was in favour of executing the men, although a survey by CNN-IBN-The Hindu newspaper in July showed Indians were divided on the merits of capital punishment. The victim's parents have said their daughter's dying wish was for her attackers to be "burned alive". A potentially years-long appeals process lies ahead for the four men. The case will go to the High Court and then Supreme Court. If they confirm the sentences, the final decision will lie with the president, who has the power to grant clemency. Although the Supreme Court ruled in the 1980s that the death penalty should be imposed only in the "rarest of rare" cases, opponents say the reality is quite different. Indian courts sentenced 1,455 prisoners to death between 2001 and 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. There are 477 people on death row. Many have been there for years. Human rights groups have been alarmed, however, by the vigour with which President Pranab Mukherjee, who was sworn into office in July 2012, has acted in clearing the backlog of clemency pleas. He has rejected 11, confirming the death penalty for 17 people. Retired Delhi High Court judge R.S. Sodhi attributes the country's low execution rate to former presidents being "too soft", wary of any backlash from what he described as a divided public. Sodhi, who said he sentenced five people to death during his time on the bench, now opposes the death penalty. "A life sentence is the biggest sentence you can give. Imagine rotting for the rest of your life in jail," he said. It is a view echoed by some women's rights groups and legal experts who had opposed executing the physiotherapist's attackers. Others have invoked the Gandhian principle that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". But top politicians, including the interior minister, had said the death penalty was assured in the case. Such comments were seen by some as adding to pressure on the court to make a populist ruling to satisfy the public outrage over the attack. "Public opinion and particularly media channels are adding fuel to the fire. It is putting the judiciary on the back foot," said Colin Gonsalves, a lawyer who has appeared in the Supreme Court and is founder director of the Human Rights Law Network. (Reuters)
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The rupee weakened in opening trade on Friday tracking weakness in offshore non-deliverable forwards but better-than-expected factory output data may limit a very sharp fall. The partially convertible rupee was trading at 64.00/01 per dollar by 09:05 a.m. versus its previous close of 63.50/51 on Thursday, 12 September. The benchmark 10-year bond yield was trading up 2 basis points at 8.52 per cent. The one-month offshore non-deliverable forward rate trading at 64.72 versus its previous close of 64.30. Traders say wholesale price inflation data, due on Monday, will be the next key trigger for markets. (Reuters)
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The government may appoint an international expert to assess the reasons for the decline in gas output from Reliance Industries -operated D6 block in the east coast ahead of changes in gas pricing from April 1, Oil Secretary Vivek Rae said on 12 September' 2013. Revision in gas pricing is expected to benefit Reliance, whose existing contracts for gas sales from D6 block in Krishna Godavari basin will expire on April 1, 2014. Output from the block, which was expected to contribute up to a quarter of the gas supply in the country, has been falling since April 2010, cutting supply to power and other sectors. While Reliance blames geological complexities for the decline, upstream regulator the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons believes production has fallen because the company failed to drill the promised number of wells. "There is some technical dispute about the quantum of gas available in some discoveries in KG D6 block.. that matter needs to be resolved before we take a final decision on applicability of the new formula," Rae told reporters at an industry event. The finance ministry and a parliamentary panel have urged the government to ensure Reliance delivers any shortfall of gas it owes to customers at the old prices of $4.2 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). "That matter is under discussion and we will see how best to resolve it," Rae said, adding the committee overseeing operation of the block will decide on the reasons for decline in output. "If necessary we will even get in international experts to give their independent opinion and once it is resolved then all roads will be cleared either way," he said. Rae said his ministry had sought the opinion of the law ministry on levying additional penalties on Reliance for not producing the promised level of gas in 2012/13 financial year. He said the government had already issued a notice to the company for a $1 billion penalty for the shortfall. BP has a 30 per cent stake in the block while Niko Resources owns a 10 per cent share.(Reuters)
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India's inclusion in popular government bond indexes such as the J.P. Morgan's Government Bond-Emerging Markets-Global Diversified index could attract about $20 billion-$40 billion in over a year, Standard Chartered Bank wrote in a note on Thursday, 12 September.India will, however, have to do away with the foreign fund investment limits in government debt, currently capped at $30 billion, which is a key criteria for inclusion in such indexes as the market otherwise is considered restrictive.The bank said the move would help the rupee and the debt market while also easing balance of payments concerns. It will result in foreign fund outflows from Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand and Hungary, they added. Standard Chartered expects India to have around 10 percent weight in the index eventually, though it may be assigned a lower weightage in the beginning.The investment bank says Indian policymakers' belief that high foreign ownership would lead to elevated bond-market volatility may be unfounded as research across 14 EM countries shows only a weak relationship between these two factors.The bank expects India's inclusion to firstly help bond markets by bringing in inflows from a wider investor base, deepen the market, and boost the rupee while also helping the economy at large.(Reuters)
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India's factory output likely shrank for the third straight month in July, albeit at a slower pace than the month before as production in the country's core industries picked up, a Reuters poll found. The poll showed output at factories, mines and utilities shrank an annual 0.8 per cent, after contracting 2.2 per cent in June, according to the median consensus of 22 economists. "Underlying industrial production momentum is expected to remain weak, despite a slight improvement in the infrastructure index," economists at Barclays said in a note to clients. Growth in Asia's third-largest economy has slowed to below 5 per cent in each of the past three quarters and with the central bank concentrating on propping up the battered rupee currency many economists have slashed GDP forecasts for this fiscal year. Infrastructure sector output rose 3.1 per cent year-on-year in July from 0.01 per cent in the previous month, government data showed last week. The sector is made up of the eight core industries - coal, crude oil, oil refinery, natural gas, steel, cement, electricity and fertilisers - and accounts for 37.9 per cent of India's industrial output. Other data on Thursday is expected to show that consumer inflation probably eased to 9.55 per cent year-over-year last month, only just below July's 9.64 per cent, as food prices continued to rise, the poll also found. "A weak rupee and significantly higher food and fuel prices are likely to maintain upward pressure on CPI inflation," wrote Barclays' economists. The rapidly falling rupee has aggravated price pressures since rising crude oil and gold prices, two of India's most imported items, have swollen the country's already huge import bill. An exodus of funds from emerging markets, triggered by the US Federal Reserve's hint at paring back its stimulus, has left the Indian rupee suffering more than its peers as it is weighed down by a bloated current account deficit. (Reuters)
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