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India faces less risk of credit rating downgrade: S&P
Cabinet clears revival package for Scooters India
BB10 fails to impress Wall St analysts; stock downgraded
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Govt lowers FY12 GDP growth estimate to 6.2%
Infrastructure growth slowed down in Dec
ICICI Bank Q3 net up 30%
CPI-IW for Dec up by 1 point, inflation rises to 11.17%
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India faces less risk of credit rating downgrade: S&P
New Delhi/Bangalore, Jan 31 "It is still at least a one in a three chance that we could downgrade. But the likelihood of it is less than when we first indicated the negative outlook last year," Tan Kim Eng said in a telephone interview from Singapore. His comments reflect a softening of the stand by the rating agency just a few weeks after it reiterated a warning in December about cutting India's rating to junk, citing a wide fiscal deficit and a heavy debt burden. India has a BBB- rating from S&P, the lowest investment grade among the BRIC group of large emerging economies and one notch above "junk" status. The threat of a rating downgrade along with electoral challenges posed by the worst economic slowdown in a decade has made Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government rediscover an appetite for politically unpalatable but vital reforms. It has opened the retail and aviation sectors to more foreign investment, hiked railway passenger fares, cut budget-busting fuel subsidies and slapped higher duties on gold imports that have widened its current account deficit. "We had no indication that they would be rolled out. So, to some extent, it is a positive surprise," Tan said. "Now, perhaps there are some indications that these reforms could bring India's structural growth back up again." Economists polled by Reuters earlier this week forecast that the measures taken by New Delhi since late last year would be enough to stave off downgrade threats issued by both S&P and its rival Fitch last year. A majority of economists polled, 14 of 23, said steps taken thus far were enough to convince the rating agencies, even though the economists expected the government to miss its fiscal deficit target for the year. India's economic growth, which was close to hitting double-digits before the global financial crisis in 2008, has been stuck below 6% for the past three quarters. In the fiscal year ending March 2013, the economy is expected to expand by about 5.5%, the worst pace since 2002-03. Growing economic pains are making it tougher for Singh to fund flagship welfare programmes ahead of a national election due by mid-2014. To revive investor sentiment, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has delayed until April 2016 controversial tax changes meant to combat evasion, after the new rules slowed capital inflows. — Reuters April-Dec fiscal deficit at $76.22 bn: Govt
India's fiscal deficit during the April-December 2012 period was Rs 4.07 trillion (US $76.22 billion), or 78.8% of the budgeted full fiscal year 2012/13 target, government data showed on Thursday. During the same period in the previous fiscal year, the deficit was 92.3% of the budgetary target. Net tax receipts for April-December stood at Rs 4.84 trillion while total expenditure was Rs 9.91 trillion. In March 2012, the government had budgeted a fiscal deficit of Rs 5.14 trillion, or 5.1% of GDP, for the current fiscal year that ends in March. However, in October, strained finances forced New Delhi to revise the deficit target to 5.3%. — Reuters |
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Cabinet clears revival package for Scooters India
New Delhi, January 31 The cabinet also approved the 2007 pay scales to the employees as per the department of public enterprises guidelines and enhancement of the superannuation age from 58 years to 60 years. According to a statement, the revival package will result in improvement in Scooters India’s productivity through enhanced capacity utilization and improvement in efficiency. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its approval on Thursday for ONGC Videsh Ltd’s acquisition of participating interest owned by Hess Corporation`s wholly-owned subsidiaries in the upstream and midstream oil and gas assets in Azerbaijan. |
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BB10 fails to impress Wall St analysts; stock downgraded
New York City, January 31 RIM, which renamed itself BlackBerry, showcased two devices, Z10 and Q10, running on its new BB10 operating system as the smartphone pioneer looks for a fresh start. "Despite recent enthusiasm for RIM's new BB10 devices, we see limited scope for traction in the hypercompetitive smartphone market," Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note. RIM faces an uphill struggle in terms of gaining smartphone market share, the Credit Suisse analysts said, downgrading the stock to "underperform" from "neutral". RIM's Nasdaq-listed shares were set to open 3% lower on Thursday. They closed 12% down on Wednesday at $13.78. Its Toronto-listed shares also fell by the same margin to close at C$13.86. RIM launched its first BlackBerry in 1999 and quickly cornered the market for secure emails, but its market share plummeted after customers jumped ship to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices using Google Inc's Android technology. Analysts at Evercore Partners said they did not expect the new BB10 devices to cause a stir among customers, and cut their rating to "equal weight" from "underweight". "The new hardware and operating system is a dramatic improvement versus RIMM's older products but expect a muted consumer response due to RIMM's damaged brand image," they said. Barclays Capital analysts wrote in a note that RIM had the best possible device launch it could have hoped for, but there were many challenges ahead. The analysts said average sales prices might be too high for many emerging market users and raised questions about how quickly businesses would adopt the new devices. Analysts were also concerned about the delay in the launch of the devices in the United States. RIM said the devices would not be available in the country until March. National Bank Financial analysts said the delay was very disappointing since the US enterprise, government and consumer is the most important market for the Z10. The BlackBerry 10 Z10 touchscreen device will be the first of the two models to hit the market, with a rollout that starts in Britain on Thursday. — Reuters |
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Govt lowers FY12 GDP growth estimate to 6.2%
According to the first revised estimates of national income, consumption expenditure, savings and capital formation, GDP (gross domestic product) for fiscal 2010-11 has been revised upwards to 9.3% from 8.4%. With these revisions, the growth rate for the current fiscal may improve given the lower base. The estimates were released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of the statistics & programme implementation ministry, for 2011-12, along with second revised estimates for the year 2010-11 and third revised estimates for 2009-10. The CSO said per capita income in real terms (at 2004-05 prices) is estimated at Rs 38,037 for 2011-12 as against Rs 36,342 in 2010-11, registering an increase of 4.7% during the year, as against a 7.2% rise in the previous year. Per capita income at current prices is estimated at Rs 61,564 in 2011-12 as against Rs 54,151 for the previous year depicting a growth of 13.7%, lower than the 17.1% rise during the previous year. On gross domestic savings, the CSO said growth at current prices in fiscal 2011-12 slowed down to 30.8% of GDP at market prices as against 34% in the previous year. The slower growth in gross domestic savings has been mainly due to decline in financial savings of household sector from 10.4% to 8%, private corporate sector from 7.9% to 7.2% and that of public sector from 2.6% to 1.3% in 2011-12 as compared to 2010-11.
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Infrastructure growth slowed down in Dec
The key infrastructure sectors had recorded growth of 4.9% in December 2011. The cumulative expansion of these industries in April - December 2012 slowed to 3.3% from 4.8% in the same period previous year, according to the official data released on Thursday. The eight industries include crude oil, petroleum refinery products, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel and have a weight of 37.9% in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP). — PTI
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ICICI Bank Q3 net up 30%
Mumbai, January 31 The bank posted a net profit of Rs 2,250 crore in October-December, compared with Rs 1,728 crore a year earlier. Net interest income, or the difference between income earned and interest expended, rose 29% to nearly Rs 3,500 crore.Net interest margin improved by 37 basis points to 3.07%. Advances rose 16% to Rs 286,766 crore, led by a 17% spike in retail advances to Rs 96,528 crore. PNB PROFIT UP 13.5%: Punjab National Bank (posted a stronger-than-expected growth of 13.53% in net profit to Rs 13.06 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2012 as compared to Rs 11.5 billion in the same period last year. Analysts on an average had expected profit to come at Rs 11.02 billion. Total income for Q3 rose 10.39% to Rs 115.19 billion as compared to Rs 104.35 bn in the same period last year. ALLAHABAD BANK NET DIPS: Allahabad Bank posted a decline of about 45% in net profit at Rs 311 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 as compared to Rs 560 crore in the same quarter last fiscal. Total income in Q3FY13 stood at Rs 4,735 crore (Rs 3,912 crore). Provisions against bad loans stood at Rs 432 crore in Q3 against Rs 421 in the same quarter last fiscal. — Agencies |
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CPI-IW for Dec up by 1 point, inflation rises to 11.17%
New Delhi, January 31 Year-on-year inflation measured by the monthly CPI-IW stood at 11.17% for December as compared to 9.55% for the previous month and 6.49% in the same month of the previous year. Similarly, food inflation stood at 13.53% against 10.85% in the previous month and 1.97% in the same month of the previous year. — TNS |
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Research In Motion Ltd's glitzy unveiling of the long-delayed line of BlackBerry smartphones on Wednesday and a new corporate name failed to impress Wall Street analysts, with at least three downgrading the company's stock.
New Delhi, January 31
New Delhi, January 31