For the fiscal year FY22, Indian exports to the 6 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations grew 44% to $43.9 billion. India’s exports to UAE jumped by 68% yoy. India’s FY22 exports to the UAE touched $28 billion according to the FIEO. Members of the GCC include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE. India’s exports to Saudi Arabia also grew 49% while exports to Oman and Qatar grew 33% and 43% while exports to Bahrain grew 70% on a much smaller base. India is one of the biggest paper
exporters to GCC.
A day after SpiceJet asked 80 pilots to go on leave without pay, DGCA has compounded their problems by extending the 50% flight restriction by another month till 29th October 2022. On July 27th, DGCA asked SpiceJet to operate just 50% of its scheduled flights till they put safety measures in place. While there was reduction in safety incidents, DGCA has extended the ban as a matter of abundant caution. During this period, SpiceJet is being subjected to enhanced surveillance by DGCA even as liquidity
crunch is hurting.
Rishad Premji announced the termination of 300 employees from the rolls of Wipro who were found to working for competitors at the same time (euphemistically called moonlighting). Clearly, Wipro wanted to set a stern example. Last week, Infosys had written to all its employees warning them against trying to moonlight. Rishad Premji highlighted that violation of integrity would not be tolerated. Moonlighting was a by-product of WFH, but it clearly raises issues of employee integrity, loyalty and data secrecy in
projects.
SEBI chairperson, Madhabi Puri Buch, has suggested an ASBA-like structure for the secondary markets too. Applications Supported by Blocked Amounts (ASBA) is a retail application system wherein the funds only get blocked for the IPO application amount and the debit to the extent of shares allotted happens on allotment, while the balance funds are released. According to Buch, a similar structure for the secondary markets also would eliminate structural vulnerabilities. SEBI is trying to smoothen the market processes.
The world’s most valuable company, Apple Inc, plans to manufacture 1 out of 4 iPhones in India by This was projected in a research note by J P Morgan. Apple has been gradually moving away some of its manufacturing from China amid mounting geopolitical tensions and stringent COVID-19
lockdowns. JPM expects Apple to move out 5% of iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022 and scale it to 25% by 2025. Apple began iPhone assembly in India in 2017 via Wistron and later Foxconn and plans
a major scale up.
Adani Ports & SEZ will develop the Tajpur deep sea port in West Bengal entailing an investment of over $3.1 billion. Out of the total outlay of Rs25,000 crore, nearly Rs15,000 crore will go for port development and the rest for building related infrastructure. Adani Ports already has a 30% domestic market share and this deal adds heft to its positioning. It is also executing the Haifa port project in Israel and a port terminal in Sri Lanka. West Bengal hopes to create 25,000 direct jobs and 100,000 indirect
jobs through this project.
The Cabinet has approved a production linked incentive (PLI) scheme worth Rs19,500 crore for the manufacture of high efficiency solar photovoltaic (PV) modules. This project is likely to attract investments of Rs94,000 crore in the sector. This PLI scheme will lead to the installation of about 65,000 MW of annual manufacturing capacity of fully and partially integrated solar PV modules. This would be instrumental in creating about 2 lakhs jobs overall. It will also result in import substitution worth Rs1.37
trillion for India.
Cement stocks came under pressure on Wednesday as Ambuja Cements, ACC and Nuvoco Vistas fell 4% to 9%. The selling was visible across cement stocks. Most cement stocks have rallied sharply after Adani took control of ACC and Ambuja Cements. But now, cement companies are worried about the impact of the supply glut on prices and the volatility created by Adani group pledging $13 billion of ACC and Ambuja Cements shares with banks. However analysts are positive on robust demand and falling petcoke prices.
