India’s central bank has announced a US$24 billion windfall for the cash-strapped Indian government, giving a much-needed boost to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he seeks to kick-start growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy.
However, the payout will likely stoke fresh concerns about the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) independence following a standoff that has seen top officials quit amid accusations of government interference.
Modi has come under increasing pressure to fire the economy, which has slowed in each of the past three quarters — losing its status as the world’s fastest growing — with unemployment hitting its highest level since the 1970s.
The auto sector has been particularly badly hit, with car sales plunging last month for the ninth month running, while weak consumer spending has hit demand for everything from biscuits to hair oil.
The RBI said it had approved a transfer of 1.76 trillion rupees (US$24.4 billion) to government coffers, including a dividend of 1.23 trillion rupees and 526 billion rupees in excess reserves following the adoption of a new methodology for assessing market risk.
Monday’s announcement came days after Indian Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures to help the economy, including bringing forward a US$10 billion liquidity lifeline for credit-shy banks and rolling back an extra levy on equity sales that had spooked foreign investors.
The latest announcement is a “positive move” for the economy and for public finances, Anand Rathi Securities Ltd economist Sujan Hajra said.
“As the RBI said, despite this fund transfer India will still have one of the best capitalizations of the central banks globally and it does not reflect poorly on either the government or the central bank,” Hajra told reporters.
Ashutosh Datar, an independent economist from Mumbai, agreed: “The amount looks huge, but it is not and there is no raid on RBI reserves.”
However, the bank’s independence has already been called into question after it cut interest rates four times this year to a nine-year low, reportedly under government pressure.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained