India gave the green light on Friday for foreign supermarket chains to enter the country as part of a blitz of economic reforms intended to spur growth and revitalize the government.
Global leaders such as Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour are to be able to own up to 51 percent in Indian subsidiaries, allowing them into a previously protected but potentially hugely lucrative sector.
Last December, the administration of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reeling from a string of corruption scandals, was forced to withdraw the reform proposal due to fierce resistance.
“The cabinet has taken many decisions today to bolster economic growth and make India a more attractive destination for foreign investment,” Singh said in a statement.”I believe that these steps will help strengthen our growth process and generate employment in these difficult times.”
The government also relaxed investment rules in the aviation sector to allow in foreign airlines for the first time, and approved the sale of stakes in four state-owned companies in the oil, copper and aluminum sectors.
The announcements follow a bold 12 percent hike in the price of heavily subsidized diesel on Thursday night, which analysts saw as the government looking to shake off its reputation for inaction and revive its reform agenda.
Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told a press conference that the clear message was that “this government thinks of India’s interests, its growth, its development, job creation, wealth generation and infrastructure building.”
Shopkeepers, opposition parties and even an ally in the national coalition have opposed the change in the law on the grounds that it would destroy the livelihoods of the small business owners who dominate the retail sector.
Populist coalition partner Trinamool Congress, a regional party from the state of West Bengal, issued a 72-hour deadline for the government to roll back the reforms, setting up a tense political drama for next week.
The next task for Singh, 79, the architect of India’s first wave of market-oriented reforms in the 1990s, would be to keep the fragile coalition together.
The reforms have come at a time when investor sentiment is down the drain,” said Jyoti Narasimhan, an economist at the IHS Global Insight consultancy.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center showed that just 38 percent of Indians thought the country was heading in the right direction.
The government sees foreign supermarkets as a way to improve the food supply chain, particularly in refrigerated facilities, as well as a means to create an estimated 10 million jobs and bring down food prices.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors