Russia Financial News

NEW DELHI : The India-Australia interim free trade agreement (FTA), in place for six months, has led to a 15% narrowing of India’s trade deficit with Australia on increased exports of drugs, electrical machinery, and iron and steel articles, along with a significant decline in coal imports due to a milder Indian summer. India’s exports to Australia fell by over 32% in the five months to May compared to the year-ago period, while imports shrank by 25%, resulting in a narrowed trade gap of $3.87 billion, representing a 15% decline from the previous year, according to official data.

RBI. Dollar appreciated after the US Fed hiked rates and India’s balance of payment (BoP) saw lower net capital inflows. This trend reversed with the dollar index peaking last October as expectations of further Fed rate hikes waned.

social media presence are trying to fight the plague of influencers with fake follower numbers. There's been a steep surge of influencers on platforms such as Instagram as well as those who blog and stream videos in India. Brands need them but with the number of Indian social influencers pegged at 80 million, it's hard to figure out who's genuine.

Pakistan's plan to import future shipments of Russian crude oil under a government-to-government (G2G) mechanism has hit a roadblock as Moscow is frustrated with the delay by Islamabad in setting up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to handle the payments and shipments. A Russian delegation visited Karachi last week to discuss the quality and pricing of its Ural grade crude oil, but was not satisfied with the progress made by Islamabad in creating the SPV, ET has learnt.

Maharashtra opposition is up in arms over a move by the government to fill 3,000 posts of police personnel for Mumbai from the Maharashtra State Security Corporation for a period of 11 months. The Maharashtra opposition has likened the move to Russia using the private militia 'Wagner' and said that the consequences could be similar to the rebellion faced recenlty by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vadim Ostanin, an activist associated with Vladimir Putin’s critic Alexei Navalny's organization, has been sentenced to 9 years in prison by Russia for being part of an «extremist community.» He was arrested in December 2021 and faced trial in Barnaul after being transferred from Moscow. Alexei Navalny's team has claimed that Ostanin had been involved in «legal political work» at the Anti-Corruption Foundation's local headquarters in Barnaul.

Syria and fired flares at it, striking the American aircraft and damaging it, the US military said Tuesday. A senior Air Force commander said the move on Sunday was an attempt by the Russians to knock the MQ-9 Reaper drone out of the sky and came just a week after a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US surveillance aircraft carrying a crew in the region, jeopardising the lives of the four American crew members. «One of the Russian flares struck the US MQ-9, severely damaging its propeller,» Lt Gen Alex Grynkewich, the head of US Air Forces Central, said in a statement describing the latest close call. «We call upon the Russian forces in Syria to put an immediate end to this reckless, unprovoked, and unprofessional behaviour.» Grynkewich said one of the crew members operating the drone remotely kept it in the air and flew it back to its home base. The Sunday incident is the latest in a series of encounters between Russian fighter jets and US aircraft flying over Syria. In all but the one instance a week ago, the US aircraft were MQ-9 drones without crew members. On that Sunday, however, the Russian Su-35 jet few close to a US MC-12 surveillance aircraft with a crew, forcing it to go through the turbulent wake.

Investing.com — Crude oil prices stabilized near three-month highs on Tuesday, as traders waited for news from the Federal Reserve following signs of tighter supplies and promises by Chinese authorities to shore up the world's second-biggest economy.

₹6,445 per bbl, having swung between ₹6,416 and ₹6,475 per bbl during the session so far, against a previous close of ₹6,461 per barrel. The crude benchmarks have already chalked up four weekly gains in a row, with supplies expected to tighten due to output cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies. Earlier-loading Brent contracts are selling above later loadings, a price structure known as backwardation indicating traders see tight supply, with the six-month spread near a two-and-a-half month high.

China as the most populous country of the world, the problem of feeding a robust 1.40 billion people in China is increasingly becoming problematic due to increasing demand, shrinking arable land, declining soil fertility, increasing fertilizer intensity amid climatic change and sustainability threats. Recently addressing a meeting of the Central Commission for Financial& Economic Affairs (CCFEA), Chinese President XI Jinping highlighted food security as “a major issue for the country.” As climatic change is becoming a reality that could not be ignored and temperature regimes and rain cycles are changing in intensity and frequency, the problem assumes further complexity.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) bumped up India’s growth forecast for FY24, citing strong domestic investment while cautioning that the global economy is not “out of the woods” yet and that the world’s battle against inflation is far from over. The multilateral lender expects India to clock 6.1% growth in FY24, up from 5.9% estimated in April.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised India’s FY24 forecast to 6.1 per cent, whereas FY25 forecast remains unchanged at 6.3 per cent. Earlier in April, in its flagship World Economic Outlook report, IMF had brought down India's growth forecast to 5.9 per cent from 6.2 per cent.

₹1 trillion. This projection is in sharp contrast to average operating profit of around ₹60,000 crore recorded between fiscals 2017 and 2022, and three times higher ₹33,000 crore reported in FY23. Crisil Ratings, in its analysis of three OMCs that collectively represent the entire sector, has indicated a positive outlook for the current fiscal.

Brics (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) grouping in Johannesburg late on Monday, Doval conveyed India’s position, reported Hindustan Times. The meeting between Doval and Wang came a little more than 10 days after external affairs minister S Jaishankar met Wang on the sidelines of Asean-related meetings in Jakarta on 14 July. Both discussed the border row, which has taken India-China relations to their lowest point in six decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially signed a bill that will introduce a digital version of the country's national currency. 

With increasing raw material costs and heavy rainf... moreWith increasing raw material costs and heavy rainfall in the northern states, retail milk prices are expected to rise in the coming months.

HSBC Holdings Plc. “Although concerns about rising food prices are warranted, the real problem is not with tomatoes, but elsewhere,” economists Pranjul Bhandari and Aayushi Chaudhary wrote in a report. The worry on cereals, including rice and wheat, are “legitimate” and may push prices higher.

Russia launched its sixth air attack this month on Kyiv early on Tuesday, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said, with air raid alerts blaring for more than three hours over the city and east half of the country. Russia attacked Kyiv with Iranian-made Shahed drones, and based on preliminary information all the drones were downed by Ukraine's air defence systems, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Investing.com-- Oil prices rose slightly in Asian trade on Tuesday, sticking to three-month highs as signs of tighter supply and expectations of more Chinese stimulus helped offset uncertainty over an upcoming Federal Reserve meeting.

A leading Russian lawmaker says China and Russia’s CBDCs may be “compatible” and could be used to make international payments between the nations.

By Stephanie Kelly