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 Export growth rate dips to 9.07% in Jan Trade deficit balloons to nearly five-year high at $16.3 billion. Growth in exports reduced in January to 9.07 per cent, from 12.03 per cent in December. With exports of $24.38 billion, the growth rate in January dipped to a single digit for the first time in three months. The rate in December more than halved  to 12.4 per cent, from November’s 30.5 per cent. “More than 6 per cent of the growth has been contributed by petroleum products. More importantly, labour-intensive sectors like garments, carpets, handicrafts,  and man-made textiles are exhibiting negative growth, primarily due to liquidity crunch because of funds getting blocked under the goods and services tax  regime,” Ganesh Kumar Gupta, president of the Federation of Indian Exports Organisations, said. Of the 30 major product groups, 20 were in positive territory  in January, against 21 in December. On the other hand, the figures made clear that India is set to overshoot i

 RBI asks banks to accept coins of all denominations from public  Banks should not refuse to accept coins of all denominations from customers and any non-compliance may result into penal action, the Reserve Bank said today.  Despite advisory that none of the bank branches should refuse to accept small denomination notes or coins tendered at their counters, complaints keep coming about non-acceptance of coins by bank branches, RBI said.  The Economic Times, New Delhi, 16th February, 2018  ......

Tax collection assumptions in India's budget ambitious: IMF  The IMF today said the tax collection assumptions in India's budget is ambitious but there is a need to look into the fiscal implications of some of the initiatives that are presently unfunded.  Referring to some of the implementations relating to the goods and services tax (GST) in 2017, IMF Director of Communications Department Gerry Rice said if  these issues persist, tax revenue collection could fall short on the budget.  We think the budget assumes the tax revenue will rise faster than the volume of transactions in the economy. So, its ambitious. It assumes the government would be able to climb higher tax revenue from the same amount of consumption and income,a Rice told reporters at his fortnightly news conference.  There are also some initiatives in the budget that are presently unfunded and fiscal implications of these need to look at a little bit more closely as more details become available,a he sa

LTCG tax will not impact NPS, says PFRDA chairman The LTCG tax proposal in the Budget 2018 will not have much impact on the National Pension Scheme (NPS), says Hemant Contractor, chairman of PFRDA The proposal of long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax will not have much impact on the National Pension Scheme (NPS), a top Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) official has said.“It will not have much impact on us. The investments in the National Pension System are made by our trust (NPS Trust) which is a tax-exempted body. As far as pension investments are concerned, LTCG will not have an impact,” PFRDA chairman Hemant Contractor said here on Tuesday. However, it will have an impact on tier II accounts also known as non-pension account, he said on the sidelines of a conference on the NPS in association with Stock Holding Corp.NPS manages two types of accounts—tier I and tier II. “Tier II has no tax benefits. Tier II account would be impacted but investments corpus

Earnings growth rises to 6 quarter high India Inc reported strong earnings growth in the December 2017 quarter after declines in the previous two quarters. This was largely expected given the lower base effect due to demonetisation in the year-ago quarter. What’s more encouraging is that some analysts believe that the momentum will continue in the coming quarters. Improved sales volume, ability to increase product prices to pass on higher input costs, better project execution and increasing order books are some of the factors that support the optimism. In the December quarter, net profit of a sample of 2,043 companies rose to a sixquarter high of 27.5 per cent year-on-year. Net sales rose by 11.5 per cent. In the previous quarter, sales had risen by 8.7 per cent, while net profit had fallen by 1 per cent. The sample excluded banking and finance companies.After excluding oil and gas companies along with banks and finance entities, sales and profit growth in the December 2017 quart

SEBI READIES P-NOTE FRAMEWORK FOR GIFT CITY Market regulator plans to relax norms for onshore securities Market regulator Sebi is readying a framework for issuance of participatory notes (p-notes) from international financial services centres such as GIFT City. It is in talks with FPIs, which act as issuers of p-notes, sources said. The move comes at a time when Indian bourses have terminated licensing of indices and data-feed agreements with their foreign counterparts. This will force overseas investors to either invest directly or come through GIFT City to trade in Indian securities. PAVAN BURUGULA writes The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is readying a framework for issuance of participatory notes (p-notes) from the international financial services centres (IFSCs) such as GIFT City. P-notes are derivative instruments that allow overseas investors to invest in a domestic security without having to directly register with Sebi. The market regulator is in talks wi

GSTN to ensure stakeholder familiarity before reintroducing e-way bill GST Network Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey has said the company will try to ensure that stakeholders become fully familiar with the technology system before the re-rollout of the e-way bill system. Under the Goods and Services and Tax, which was rolled out from July 1 last year, transporters of goods worth more than Rs 50,000 are required to carry electronic or e-way bill. The e-way bill system was launched by GSTN on February 1 after conducting pilot for over a fortnight, but faced technical glitches following which its implementation had to be postponed. In an interview to PTI, Pandey said GSTN is conducting extended pilot for the e-way bill mechanism and has suggested to states that they should ask their transporters to undertake trial run for e-way bill generation on the portal. "As soon as there is a readiness of the system and stakeholders, we will roll it out. We are trying to do it as early as pos