สรุปข่าวเศรษฐกิจอินเดียประจำวันที่ 15 มีนาคม 2555
India's businesses fear more taxes in Budget 2012
India's businesses, already facing high interest rates and a global economic slowdown, worry that the finance ministry will ask them to shoulder a bigger tax burden in the budget set for release on Friday to trim the fiscal deficit.
Growth in Asia's third-largest economy is expected to dip below 7% in the current fiscal year ending March, the slowest pace in three years, while manufacturing may cool to 4% from 7.2% in the previous year.
Industrial chambers including the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) are lobbying hard for a delay in hiking tax rates but do not expect any major tax relief.
Economists widely criticized the last budget for overly optimistic growth forecasts and unrealistic spending cut plans.
The cash-starved civil aviation, real estate and capital markets hope for further easing of rules on foreign investors as a way to attract more money, which should help improve access to cheaper funds from overseas and ease inflation.
(Source: Economic Times, Reuters India, Business World, Moneycontrol)
Railway budget exposes UPA’s frailty
The railway budget presented on Wednesday, hailed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee as reformist and progressive—it raised rates, the first for a rail budget in almost a decade.
The railway budget presented by Dinesh Trivedi broke new ground for an event usually characterized by announcements regarding new trains and locomotive factories —it was opposed by his own party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Trivedi has proposed raising passenger fares by 10-40% across the board. According to him, these hikes will ensure that the railways earns Rs.36, 073 crore in the next fiscal, an increase of nearly 28% over the revenue earned in 2011-12.
The railway budget has to be passed by both the Lok Sabha, where the UPA has a wafer-thin majority (counting the TMC), and the Rajya Sabha, where it is in a minority. However, since it is so-called appropriation legislation, only the Lok Sabha can make changes in it; the passage of such Bills by the Rajya Sabha is usually a formality. The main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left parties criticized the proposed increase in fares, saying that it would add to inflation.
(Source: Livemint, the Hindu, ZeeNews)
Budget 2012: Economic Survey suggests reform to end slowdown
A day before the Union Budget to be presented in Parliament, as is customary, the Finance Ministry will release the Economic Survey outlook, its view on the state of the economy on Thursday.
The report is likely to suggest measures to kickstart a double-digit economic growth and present a wishlist for the Indian economy. The economy is expected to hit 6.9% growth for 2011-2012, the slowest since the global crisis of 2008.
The survey could recommend measures to tackle the ballooning fiscal deficit and high inflation. It comes against a backdrop of a high interest rate regime and policy paralysis at the Centre amids uncertain global economic demand.
Chief Economic Adviser Dr Kaushik Basu will be presenting the survey on Thursday.
(Source: Economic Times, Times of India, Moneycontrol)
Economic Section
Royal Thai Embassy
