สรุปข่าวเศรษฐกิจอินเดียประจำวันที่ 5 มีนาคม 2555
China GDP target at 7.5%, lowered first time in 7 yrs
Facing an economic down turn due to steady fall in exports, China for the first time in seven years projected a lower growth, scaling down its GDP growth target to 7.5% this year from last year's 8%.
The lower growth target was projected in the annual government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at China's Legislature.
This is the first time for the Chinese government to lower its economic growth target after keeping it around 8% for seven consecutive years.
China has announced to target a 7% GDP growth from 2011 to 2015, the country's 12th Five-Year Plan period.
The lower growth projections followed the adverse impact of the global economic down turn being felt by China hurting its export oriented economy.
(Source: Moneycontrol.com, Business Standard, Bloomberg)
Services sector loses some steam in February: poll
India's services sector lost momentum in February and firms shed workers for the first time in three months despite growing more confident about the year ahead, a business survey showed on Monday.
India's relatively dismal economic growth of 6.1 percent in the three months to December, its slowest pace in almost three years, showed that economic weakness has spread from the factory sector to the services sector.
With growth in Asian economies expected to slow further in the first quarter of the calendar year, India may face more economic turbulence in the coming months.
Inflation, which has refused to come down from lofty levels despite numerous rate hikes by the Indian central bank over two years, has been one of the country's major economic hurdles.
But a fall in the wholesale price index to its lowest level in over two years in January, together with the gloomy economic outlook, gave ample reason for expectations of policy easing by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
A majority of economists polled by Reuters in January expect the RBI to cut its key interest rate by the end of June with 8 of 22 forecasting a rate cut in March.
(Source: Reuters India, Economic Times, Business Standard, Bloomberg)
Race picks up to head World Bank
The race to succeed World Bank president Robert Zoellick is heating up with the emergence of the first declared candidate, another American.
Renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs, who led the UN committee on the MDGs, threw his hat in the ring Friday with an oped piece, saying World Bank needs an expert like himself rather than another politician or Wall Street banker.
Sachs's declaration came amid signs the United States is eyeing others for the high-profile job.
One thing seems certain, though: despite a chorus of calls from emerging markets and NGOs for a non-American to lead the lender, in the name of "new normal" global economy, the US, as the biggest stakeholder, is expected to decide the winner.
The World Bank has promised the selection process will be "merit-based and transparent" and open to candidates from its 187 member nations.
But in an unwritten pact since the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund nearly seven decades ago, the US has always put an American at the helm of the Bank and Europe has ensconced a European as IMF managing director.
(Source: AFP, Taipei times, Hindustan Times, Channel News Asia)
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