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INDO-CHINA BILATERAL TRADE TO GO UP

NATHU LA NEW OUTPOST OF COMMERCE

By Ashis Biswas

While investors and business circles grumble over the tardy pace of growth in Indo-China bilateral trade through the Nathu La Himalayan outpost, Beijing is apparently not too keen to launch any export promotion initiative just yet. In the context of India’s large trade deficit vis-à-vis China, the reverse trend at Nathu La, where China imports far more from India than it exports, strikes most observers as an oddity.

In statistical terms, the volume of trade has increased considerably. In 2006, when movement between the two countries was resumed linking Sherathang, Nathu La in Sikkim with Rinqinjing, once part of the Tibet autonomous area(TAR)which is currently Southwest China, there was a trade turnover of Rs 20 lakh only !And there was nil import from China that year.

However, by Jan 2015,

START-UP INDIA’S FOUNDATIONAL SCAM

WHY TAX/GREEN BREAK FOR INDIA’S RICH?

By Garga Chatterjee

On 16th January, with much fanfare, the Union government announced its “Start-up India” scheme. On attendance were big people, big enough not to deserve any income tax break in their next seven lives. But this is precisely what the Government of India (GoI) has offered – an income tax exemption for first three years of a “start-up”. There will also be tax exemption on capital gains. After all its fake environment-love recently in Paris, this GoI scheme has also offered a three-year exemption on environment law compliance! Entities will only need to self-certify! In the name of “start-up”, exactly what anti-environment, anti-labour racket are we starting up here? This will also be true for labour law and working condition compliance (including payment of wages and benefits to staff). Shamelessly, this whole sch

Saudi will not de-peg or devalue riyal

|By Matein Khalid| The collapse in Brent crude oil below $30, a 20% fall in the Tadawul share index in January 2016’s global equity bloodbath, the cut in fuel subsidies and geopolitical risk escalation in the Middle East has spawned speculation in financial markets that Saudi Arabia will devalue the kingdom’s riyal, now pegged at 3.75 against the US dollar. Senior princes of the royal family and […]

Gulf rail plan in trouble

Plans for a 1,350-mile railroad running the length of the Persian Gulf from Kuwait to the Indian Ocean are in doubt after the United Arab Emirates halted contract awards amid a review of spending as oil proceeds shrink. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Rail has suspended the tender process for stage two of the project, which is due to take the line west to the U.A.E.’s border with Saudi […]

NO THREAT FROM DHAKA-MOSCOW NUCLEAR BONHOMIE

ENERGY-HUNGRY BANGLADESH SAW DECADES-LONG WAIT

By Ashis Biswas

KOLKATA: Diplomacy may have won the day for Russia more than financial/technological reasons, in bagging the order to build two nuclear power generating stations in Bangladesh by 2022-23.

This would enable Bangladesh to become the third country in South Asia to generate nuke power, after India and Pakistan. However, Sri Lanka could join the list soon according to present indications.

A proposal to build nuclear power plants in East Pakistan had been put forward as early as 1961 and approved in 1963, according to open source information. Therefore, neither Awami League (AL) leader Sheikh Hasina, nor Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Khaleda Zia, can be rightfully accused of harbouring illusions of grandeur in going nuclear. Bangladesh has pledged to observe non-proliferati

Record-setting 2015 for cross-border M&A globally and in the Middle East

SAUDI ARABIA. 2015 has established itself as a record-breaking year for cross-border M&A post-financial crisis, according to a Cross-Border M&A Index* by global law firm Baker & McKenzie. With corporate deal-making activity at record highs, those companies are also executing record levels of cross-border transactions, a global trend reflected in the Middle East. Overall M&A in 2015 reached US$4.28 trillion, of which 39% were cross-border in nature […]

Saudi may have ‘sin’ tax, VAT

|By Arabian Post Staff| Decreasing Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil revenues could include the introduction of VAT and so-called sin taxes, observers say. Other issues under consideration include the partial privatization of selected state assets – including Saudi Aramco – and better utilization of state-owned real estate. The Kingdom has been successfully diversifying its economy over the past decade, with non-oil revenues increasing by 29 percent this […]

Risk of world drowning in oil

Global oil markets could “drown in oversupply,” sending prices even lower as demand growth slows and Iran revives exports with the end of sanctions, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA trimmed 2016 estimates for global oil demand as China’s economic expansion weakens and raised forecasts for supplies outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. While non-OPEC supply is set to drop 600,000 barrels a day […]

‘Made in China’ global equities crash

|By Matein Khalid| This was the ghastliest week for global risk assets since September 2011. Not even 290,000 new US jobs in December could negate the raw fear on Wall Street generated by the 10% fall in Shanghai, a yuan depreciation, market meltdowns of 6 – 7% in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Mumbai and New York. Four months ago, I had published a KT article titled “History’s […]

Wi-Fi HaLow To Power Internet of Things

Lower power. Longer range. That’s the story behind Wi-Fi HaLow, a new technology the Wi-Fi Alliance has just introduced to help tap into the momentum around low power Wi-Fi solutions that cater specifically to the Internet of Things (IoT). The Wi-Fi HaLow designation, which aims at products leveraging IEEE 802.11ah technology, works at and below the one gigahertz frequency band without sacrificing range. In fact, HaLow promises […]

Saudi to review power, fuel subsidies as oil prices drop

Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia’s subsidy scheme is poised for a change as the country announced that they would be reviewing government support for energy, water and electricity prices in the next five years. A 2016 budget document by the Ministry of Finance said that reviewing government support is aimed at achieving efficiency in energy use, conserving natural resources, stopping waste and irrational use, and minimising negative effects […]

Zuma protests: Indian family in the eye of storm

As South Africans endure their deepest economic crisis since 2009, it’s not just President Jacob Zuma they blame. There’s a family whose name is increasingly the target of protest: the Guptas. As tens of thousands marched in October in South Africa’s biggest wave of nationwide anti-government protests since the African National Congress came to power, one poster, broadcast on the nation’s television channels, captured the public anger: […]

INDIA JAPAN ECONOMIC COOPERATION BEST FOR BOTH NATIONS

STRATEGICALLY TWO COUNTRIES NEED TO BE CLOSER

By Nantoo Banerjee

Trust is the key. Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe seems to have finally recognized that India could be fully trusted with technology transfer and large fund investments. It may have taken almost a quarter of a century since Osamo Suzuki chose India for small car production in equity collaboration with the government-owned Maruti Udyog for Japan to finally trust India to engage itself with the country for civil nuclear cooperation. But, Japan today is convinced that slow-and-steady-moving democratic India is probably the most trusted country for economic and technology cooperation outside the USA. The huge $12-billion Japanese long term soft credit commitment for a single project in India – the 550 km Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train service – along with proposal of technology transfer in defence production among 14 other ec

MAKING INDIAN INVESTMENT CLIMATE MORE BUSINESS-FRIENDLY

BUREAUCRATS HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR MINDSETS

By Subrata Majumder

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to take India within top 50 in the World Bank‘s Ease of Doing Business in three years from the current rank of 130 out of 189 countries. Morgan Stanley Vice – Chairman Tom Nides reposed confidence in Modi’s leadership in fast-forwarding the economy. Arguing on Make in India, he said that Mr Modi was not for short term decision for instant gratification. Over the decades, Indian bureaucracy became the main tool to formulate the economic policies, no matter whether they were economists, scientists or statisticians or not.

Caught in the ambivalence of personal loyalty to ministers and Prevention of Corruption Act, passing the buck and shying away from decision making were the common practices of Indian bureaucrats. Clogged into huge paper works and multiple

PRIYANKA MAY BE PROJECTED AS FUTURE CM CANDIDATE IN UTTAR PRADESH

By Nora Chopra

Priyanka Gandhi is likely to be the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. The thinking in the Congress that unless the Congress returns to power in UP, it cannot revive nationally. Again there is consensus within the party that if the party goes without a face in the election, then it would be difficult to revive itself in the party particularly when you have a young sitting chief minister like Akhilesh Yadav and a former dalit CM like Mayawati. After losing the Bihar elections, the BJP too has started the exercise of shortlisting the candidates. But the Congress I party is once again at a loss. They don’t have a leader in Uttar Pradesh who can match up the stature of both these UP leaders nor does Rahul have the stature of Narendra Modi or Rajnath Singh who can canvass in any state. The Congress leaders feel that by projecting Priyanka Gandhi as the CM before assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress Party can be reviv

SME SECTOR TO PLAY A BIG ROLE IN JOBS CREATION

MODI GOVERNMENT HAS TO BOOST SKILL DEVELOPMENT

By K.R. Sudhaman

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced from the ramparts of Red Fort on the Independence Day that the two mantras of his government’s economic strategy would be job creation and to tackle farmers’ woes. In a country, where 10-12 million enter job market every year, no government can ignore this fact and rightly Modi from the day he assumed office in May 2014, has been laying emphasis on job creation. This is all the more important as 65 per cent of the vast 1.25 billion population in the country are below the age of 35.

If India were to cash-in on this demographic dividend, it needed to give a fillip to labour intensive technology, infrastructure and micro, small and medium enterprises. The make-in-India campaign, the digital India coupled with Skill India launched by Modi is aimed at cr

Gold falls below ‘crucial level’

|By Arabian Post Staff| The price of gold futures hit their lowest levels since October 2009, below what Goldman called a crucial level and at current prices half of the gold coming from mines may not be viable, industry sources warned. “The more we continue to produce unprofitable gold, the more pressure we put on the gold price,” said Randgold Resources Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow. […]

Do you realize what ‘killer robots’ are doing to us?

|By Arabian Post staff| The rise of intelligent machines represents the evolution of the next industrial revolution, which will bring about a paradigm shift in the way we live and work, a special report on the subject by BankofAmerica-Merrill Lynch says. Robots and AI are becoming an integral part of our daily lives as providers of labour, mobility, safety, convenience, and entertainment. The year 2014 was the […]

Chinese bag Dubai power plant deal

|By TAP Staff| Dubai Water and Electricity Authority has chosen a consortium including China’s Harbin Electric and Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power as the preferred bidder to build and operate a 1,200 megawatt clean coal power plant. The plant is the first phase of the $1.8 billion Hassyan clean coal project under planning by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA). One unit of 600 MW is to be […]

20% ME ultra wealthy in UAE

|By TAP Staff| There are 1,275 ultra wealthy individuals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), representing 20% of the total ultra wealthy population in the Middle East, Wealth-X research shows. The combined wealth of the UAE’s ultra high net worth (UHNW) population stands at US$255 billion. Wealth-X defines UHNW individuals as those with US$30 million and above in net assets. The study also reveals that 57% of […]

Saudi petrochemical sector set to stay ahead of the pack

SAUDI ARABIA.   Saudi Arabia is leveraging low oil prices to accelerate development of its downstream petrochemical derivatives sector, and will add over 30 million tonnes of production capacity by 2020, raising production to 126 million tonnes from 2014 levels of 94.6 million tonnes, the latest edition of The Oil & Gas Year (TOGY) revealed. Capital expenditure in the petrochemical sector as well is set to further […]

Bain & Company study finds services are key to GCC industrial companies' sustained growth

UAE.  In many industrial companies, services play virtually no role. Yet the service business is reporting growth rates up to 40 percent faster than sales of new products. What’s more, the gross profit margin of services is on average a good ten percentage points higher. These are the conclusions from international management consultants Bain & Company in their latest study, “Winning in Industrial Services,” in which 45 […]

Microsoft turns spotlight on cloud, mobile with new reporting style

A Microsoft logo is seen on an office building in New York City, July 28, 2015. The global launch of the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system will take place on July 29. Reuters/Mike Segar Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) joined Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Intel Corp (INTC.O) in tweaking the way it reports results, a move that will help the software giant show off its growing cloud and mobile […]

The Gulf: Not all that's gold glitters

INTERNATIONAL. Gleaming glass skyscrapers, state-of-the-art technology, and wealthy merchant families have replaced the Gulf’s muddy towns and villages populated by traders and pearl fishers that once lacked electricity, running water or modern communications. The region’s modern day projection of a visionary cutting- edge, 21st  century urban environment masks however the fact that some things have not changed. Gulf states continue to be ruled by the same families, […]