Daily News - Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Japan to unveil plan to invest $68 bn in India over 10 years in AI, chips (Business Standard)
Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to announce a massive ¥10 trillion ($68 billion) investment in India over the next decade, targeting key areas like mobility, environment, medicine, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors, while also revising the long-standing joint security declaration with Prime Minister Modi during the upcoming summit in Japan. The plan is not only about capital flow but also about people, as Tokyo wants to train, hire, and bring in more Indian engineers and specialists to bridge Japan’s talent gap, with examples already seen in companies like Sompo Care and Sekisho actively recruiting and preparing Indian workers for the Japanese market. With Japan facing a looming shortage of nearly 790,000 tech-trained workers by 2030 and India producing 1.5 million engineering graduates every year, this partnership aims to blend Japanese technology and capital with India’s vast human resource pool to strengthen economies, deepen ties, and create long-term strategic cooperation.
Textile units in Surat, Tiruppur halt production; large-scale job losses seen (Financial Express)
India’s textile and apparel exporters in hubs like Tiruppur, Noida, and Surat have started halting production as the sudden 50% US tariff has wiped out their cost competitiveness, leaving them vulnerable to cheaper rivals from Vietnam, Bangladesh, and others, and pushing them to either slash prices by 30% or risk losing spring and winter orders worth billions. Industry leaders warn that nearly ₹72,000 crore of exports and millions of jobs in India’s second-largest employment-generating sector are now at stake, with buyers already demanding steep discounts and exporters fearing stockpile losses, order cancellations, and potential mass layoffs unless immediate relief is provided. Export bodies are urging the government to treat this like a Covid-level crisis by offering moratoriums on loan repayments, low-cost credit, export incentives, and urgent diplomatic talks with the US, while also fast-tracking trade deals with the EU and other regions to safeguard investments and preserve India’s foothold in global markets.
‘Strategic Shock’: Donald Trump’s Tariffs To Hit 66% Of India’s Exports To US; China, Vietnam Set To Gain (The Times of India)
The Trump administration’s decision to enforce a 50% tariff on Indian goods from August 27 will hit $60.2 billion worth of exports across labour-intensive sectors like textiles, gems, jewellery, shrimp, carpets, and furniture, slashing India’s competitiveness and potentially shrinking export volumes by 70% as countries like China, Vietnam, and Mexico swoop in to capture lost market share. Projections by GTRI show that India’s US-bound exports could fall from $86.5 billion in FY2025 to just $49.6 billion in FY2026, translating to a 43% overall decline that would trigger widespread job losses in export-oriented hubs and threaten India’s hard-won position in global supply chains. On the macroeconomic level, the export blow could shave nearly 0.9 percentage points off India’s GDP growth for FY2026, lowering it from a potential 6.5% to 5.6%, underlining the scale of the crisis and the urgent need for strategic countermeasures.
