India Financial News

₹3,01,684 crore into the Indian stock markets till 21 August, up nearly threefold from ₹1,08,887 crore a year earlier. At the same time, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) cut their investments to ₹15,940 crore from ₹1,40,105 crore a year earlier.

Amazon India is set to tweak its seller fee structures with effect September 9, with several categories seeing a reduction in commissions in the run up to the festive season. The firm has reduced commissions in the range of 3-12% for 59 sub-categories, Amazon India’s director of selling partner services, Amit Nanda, told ET. The reduction is focused on products with low average selling price (ASP), he said. “We also wanted to help our sellers in planning for their Diwali and other festive sales… with this change, we’re hoping sellers will find it as cheap, if not cheaper, to sell some products on Amazon compared to their offline channels,” Nanda said.

Ukraine is ready to directly engage with India by purchasing Made-in-India products and allowing Indian companies to open in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday. He also said that Ukraine is also willing to establish companies in India. Zelenskyy held a press conference following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kyiv, where he was asked if Ukraine is ready to directly engage with India and buy Made-in-India products.

Ukraine on Friday inked four agreements and resolved to enhance their cooperation in a range of key areas including defence, trade, pharmaceuticals, green energy and education with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reaffirming commitment to further develop the bilateral ties. In their wide-ranging talks, the two leaders also expressed mutual interest in working towards elevating the ties from a comprehensive partnership to a strategic one. Underlining the importance of defence cooperation, Modi and Zelenskyy agreed to work towards facilitating a stronger relationship in the sector including through joint collaborations and partnerships for manufacturing of military hardware in India. Modi arrived in Kyiv this morning on a special train on the first-ever visit to Ukraine by an Indian prime minister after it became independent in 1991.

Europe's allure seems intact for Indian travellers. Visa applications for European destinations have jumped year-on-year after the summer vacations as Indians unleash their wanderlust to explore Europe in autumn and winter as well. Travel and tourism industry executives said this has stretched visa appointment timelines for many European countries, with some offering no slots at all.

India's cooling appetite for hatchbacks and sedans is proving to be a double-edged sword for Hyundai Motor India Ltd, as the country's second-largest passenger vehicles maker draws closer to an initial public offering (IPO). After two years of blazing growth, passenger vehicle wholesales in July fell 2.5% from a year earlier, and manufacturers have been offering discounts since May to clear stocks. While falling demand has reduced pressure on Hyundai's stretched production capacity, it has also depressed its expected valuation to $16-20 billion from $25-30 billion earlier, two people aware of the IPO discussions said.

India's flexible inflation targeting has been a useful tool to deal with unexpected shocks of various kinds, said Jayanth Varma, the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) consistent dissenter who attended his last meeting as an external member in August. Since his first meeting at the Reserve Bank of India's rate-setting panel four years ago, Varma's view on interest rates and monetary policy stance has diverged from the consensus opinion. At a time of accommodative monetary policy after the pandemic outbreak, Varma had argued for normalizing the policy stance.

shipping ministry has proposed to launch a non-banking finance company (NBFC) under its Sagarmala initiative to meet the financing needs of the shipping and shipyard sectors, two senior officials familiar with the matter said. The finance ministry is currently evaluating the proposal, the officials from the shipping ministry told ET. The non-bank lender will also need Reserve Bank of India clearance to carry out lending. The officials expect the shipping ministry to get all the necessary approvals and launch the new NBFC by December. It will act as a specialist lender to shipping companies and shipyards that often find it difficult to get bank loans, they said, asking not to be named.

Consumers may face disruptions in getting service and transactional messages from banks, financial institutions and ecommerce firms on their mobile phones from next month following a telecom regulator move aimed at curbing spam, specifically phishing attempts. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has asked telcos to stop transmitting messages containing URLs, OTT links, APKs (Android application packages) or call-back numbers that are not whitelisted--or registered with telcos--by senders from September 1. The regulator's ultimatum means banks, financial institutions and online platforms must get their templates and content registered with operators by the August 31 deadline, failing which messages containing these elements will be blocked.

urban consumption, softer manufacturing sector growth and moderate government expenditure amid elections may have dragged down growth in the first quarter of FY25. India's economy likely grew by a median 6.85% in the April-June period from a year earlier, according to an ET poll of 14 economists, slipping from 7.8% in the last quarter of FY24 and 8.2% in the year before. The growth estimates ranged from 6% to 7.5%. The median figure is lower than the RBI forecast of 7.1% for the quarter. «Slowing of manufacturing activity and lower government expenditure during the election period likely contributed to the slowdown in output growth in the quarter,» said Shreya Sodhani, regional economist, Barclays, pencilling in 7.1% gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the June quarter. The government will release June quarter growth data on August 30. The general elections held in the April-June period impacted government spending.

Ecommerce company Amazon India is set to tweak its seller fee structures with effect September 9, with several categories seeing a reduction in commissions in the run up to the festive season. The firm has reduced commissions in the range of 3-12% for 59 sub-categories, Amazon India's director of selling partner services, Amit Nanda, told ET. The reduction is focused on products with low average selling price (ASP), he said. «We wanted to help our sellers in planning for their Diwali and other festive sales… we're hoping sellers will find it as cheap, if not cheaper, to sell some products on Amazon compared to their offline channels,» Nanda said. In March, ET reported about Amazon increasing commissions in the range of 10-30% across major segments. At the time, it had shifted several categories like car electronics, keyboards and mouses, and personal care appliances from a single flat commission to a tiered system based on ASP. This time, categories like apparel, home furnishing, fashion and sports will see a reduction in seller commissions.

the world's largest hotel franchising company, will launch its first luxury hotel in India with the opening of the Wyndham Grand in Udaipur next year, and the chain is also considering 'strategic alliances' with white label operators to boost its presence in the country and bring in more brands, said Dimitris Manikis, president for Europe, the Middle East, Eurasia, and Africa (EMEA), Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, in an interview. The chain has also appointed Shailender Singh as the market managing director for Eurasia. Wyndham has 60 operational hotels in India, with 45 hotels in the pipeline. Wyndham's upcoming hotel openings for this year include new properties in Srinagar, Nainital, Ayodhya, Vrindavan and Wayanad. «This is India's decade and Wyndham has to be one of the key players in India's hospitality sector. There is no better time to be in India than now,» said Manikis.

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Employment and Consumer Welfare’ released on Wednesday. The report’s findings are principally based on a panIndia survey of 2,062 online vendors, 2,031 brick-and-mortar vendors, and 8,209 consumers of products from ecommerce websites. It was conducted across 35 cities in 20 states and UTs. The survey itself was guided by a robust methodology and conducted by PRICE (People Research on India’s Consumer Economy). Given the veracity of the survey findings, it would be most useful for policymakers to take cognisance of these empirical findings. One of the most striking takeaway is that the apocalypse narrative of large-scale destruction of kirana stores is rejected by brick-and-mortar vendors themselves. The survey asked vendors if they were aware of any physical stores that had shut down in their vicinity since 2020, and what they thought the contributing reasons were. Less than 20% reported a physical store closure in their neighbourhood since 2020 when the pandemic drove an ecommerce boom. Only 6% of offline vendors attributed these store closures to consumers shifting to online shopping. A slightly higher proportion — 8% — attributed physical store closures to the growth of large organised retail.

India's stand of "dialogue and diplomacy" and announced every possible assistance to resolve the Russo-Ukraine conflict, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said in Kyiv on Friday following the PM's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The PM, Jaishankar said, stressed «India's willingness to contribute in all ways possible». The two leaders also discussed Modi's conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Moscow in July, Jaishankar said, adding India explained its position on energy ties with Russia. Modi invited Zelenskyy to visit India at a mutually convenient opportunity.

separate administration or a Union Territory for tribals in Manipur, have urged the Centre to ask the judicial commission probing the ethnic violence in the state to expedite its probe. They demanded that chief minister N Biren Singh be «immediately barred» from the office so that he can't influence the «outcome» of the investigation. The MLAs, including two ministers, said: «We once again appeal to the Government of India to expedite our demand for a separate administration in the form of UT with a legislature, as that alone is the path to lasting peace in the region.» Last June, the MHA, had constituted a three-member Commission of Inquiry, headed by former chief justice Ajai Lamba, to probe ethnic violence in Manipur. The tribal legislators, seven of whom belong to the ruling BJP, in a joint statement said that the judicial commission must expedite its investigation and identify the guilty. The statement said that the state government had to issue a press release on August 7 regarding some «doctored audio clips», which claimed to be that of the CM and meant to incite communal violence and derail various peace initiatives by the state and central governments at multiple levels.

India and the US have signed a new agreement that will prioritise supply of defence equipment and components to each other to meet urgent national security requirements, even as defence minister Rajnath Singh described the partnership as a «formidable force» for global peace and security. Singh held a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Pentagon, Washington DC, and the two had wide-ranging discussions on bilateral defence cooperation, industrial collaboration, regional security and other international issues.

Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) has dropped a tax demand of about ₹3,000 crore for 2017-18 against 18 foreign shipping companies operating in the country, people familiar with the matter said. The move brings cheer to foreign shipping lines, such as Maersk, Orient Overseas Container Line Ltd and Hapag Lloyd Mediterranean Shipping, who were facing notices for non-payment of goods and services tax (GST) on import of services from July 2017 onwards. The tax demand was dropped after the shipping companies gave a joint undertaking that there was no import of services in 2017-18, the people said.

Narendra Modi's BJP came to power. As then-secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (Dipp), Kant was presiding over a stakeholder discussion on whether multi-brand retail should be allowed in India. Over a decade since, Piyush Goyal has, yet again, highlighted his government's concerns over the growth of ecommerce in India — that there will be social disruption, there is predatory pricing in ecommerce, and the number of mobile stores in the country has declined over the past 10 years. He is concerned — and rightly so — about the fate of millions of small retailers and kirana stores in the country. The point that I made to Kant in 2014 still stands: ecommerce offers consumers a much wider variety of products, whether coloured socks, numbered swimming goggles or air-purifiers. It benefits both sellers and buyers. Customers in Tier-2 and -3 towns access a wider variety of products online, without relying on someone to go to a metro to purchase it. Sellers find buyers across the country.

United States has emerged as India's top trading partner in January-June this year, while the country has recorded its highest trade deficit of $41.6 billion with China during the period, think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said Friday. India exports goods to 239 countries of which 126 countries showed positive growth in exports. Imports from Russia grew to $34.4 billion from $30.8 billion, a 11.65% increase. It also said the country's merchandise exports rose 5.41% to $230.51 billion during the first half of 2024, led by sectors like iron ore, pharmaceuticals, precious stones, basmati rice, chemicals, and smartphones.

index provider FTSE on Friday announced changes to its All-World Index where 13 Indian stocks were included. The index saw the most number of additions from India followed by six stocks from Taiwan, two from Korea and Hong Kong and one from Australia. The inclusions were Bank of Maharashtra, Bharat Dynamics, Central Bank of India, Cochin Shipyard, Endurance Technologies, Escorts Kubota, GE T&D India, Hitachi Energy India, Housing And Urban Development (HUDCO), IRB Infrastructure Developers, KEI Industries, Lloyds Metals and Energy and Motilal Oswal Financial Services.