สรุปข่าวเศรษฐกิจอินเดียประจำวันที่ 4 เมษายน 2555
Tamil Nadu CM rollbacks power tariff
Pointing out that the recent power tariff hike was unavoidable and was necessitated by the precarious fiscal position of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday announced partial rollback of the hike for domestic consumers to the tune of Rs 740 crore benefiting about 1.5 crore families. The Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) on March 30 announced the tariff hike to net an additional income of Rs 7,874 crore for the TNEB.
Jayalalithaa said the reduction in power tariff has been done accepting the representations from the public stating that poor and middle class families would be overburdened by the hike.
Despite the recent hike, the tariff in Tamil Nadu was much less than many States in the country, the CM pointed out, and added that since the government had no powers to cut the tariff, it would pay the Rs 740 crore as subsidy to the TNEB.
(Source: IBNLive, Moneycontrol, Sify.com, Bharatwaves.com, Deccanherald)
Bajaj Auto becomes second largest share holder of the largest bike maker in Europe - KTM
Bajaj Auto, India's second-largest two-wheeler maker, has tightened its hold on KTM Power Sports by buying another 6.3%, taking it stake in the Austrian motorcycle to a little over 47%.
Bajaj Auto is the second-largest shareholder in KTM. Other large shareholders are Stefan Pierer and Rudolf Knuenz which holds more than 51% stake. Bajaj Auto and KTM are working on a few joint development projects.
Already both the partners are jointly working on a series of platforms and engines which will offer cost and quality benefits. Not only at the back-end, Bajaj Auto and KTM plan to use each others' global network to boost volumes and turn India into a significant manufacturing base, which will boost KTM's profitability.
Bajaj Auto supplied about 11,000 out of 81,000 bikes that KTM sold in 2011. This year the company plans to scale the numbers up to 40,000 KTMs and eventually produce 50% of all KTM motorcycles by 2015.
(Source: Rushlane, Economic Times, Motorshout.com)
Default rate for firms touches 10-year high
Signalling growing pressure on Indian firms in servicing debt, credit assessor Crisil Ltd said on Tuesday that the so-called default rate among entities rated by it had reached the highest level in a decade.
The absolute number of companies that moved to the defaulters list in 2011-12 was 188, representing one-third of the total rating downgrades by Crisil through the year.
The rating action ratio (RAR), another indicator used by Crisil calculated as the total number of ratings upgrades and reaffirmation of previous upgrades to downgrades and similar reaffirmations, also declined in fiscal 2012 to 1.01 from 1.10 in the preceding year. This means the frequency of ratings downgrades was higher than that of upgrades.
Slowing economic growth and high interest rates, after 13 rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India since March 2010 to cool inflation, have crimped the ability of many firms to repay debt.
(Source: Wall Street Journal, Business Standard, Livemint, Smartinvestor.in, Dnaindia)
Brazil, India top business confidence index: Report
Amid Eurozone crisis and uncertain economic climate, emerging economies of Brazil and India have topped the business confidence index, confirming their role as key drivers of the global economy, says a Regus report.
The global Business Confidence Index is based on a survey of views on revenue, profit trends and expected growth.
According to the latest bi-annual Regus Business Confidence Index (BCI) report which tracks the opinions of over 16,000 business managers and owners from 86 countries, business confidence in Brazil has reached 148 points in March followed by India 143 points.
The benchmark average is set at 100 to indicate a neutral outlook. However, businesses confidence in India has dipped by 2 index points from September 2011 to 143 in March this year, while during the same period Brazil witnessed a rise of 2 points to 148.
At the other extreme is Japan which at 82 points appears to be still suffering from the March 2011 disasters.
Among other countries, the United States rose 15 points to score a 105, while Mexico and South Africa were up seven points and two points respectively at 109 and 117, while UK was down one point to 113.
(Source: Channel News Asia, Economic Times, Business Standard, ZeeNews, PTI)
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