Aurelia Butler

Scotland’s deputy first minister has warned that the country faces “four very difficult years” because weak economic growth could force the government of first minister Nicola Sturgeon to cut to public-sector jobs and spending, and put it on a collision course with unions demanding above inflation pay rises. John Swinney, who is acting finance cabinet secretary, had to revise parts of the Scottish government’s spending plans twice last year, to accommodate higher than expected wage settlements with public sector workers. While most accepted Holyrood’s revised pay offers, teaching unions rejected a proposal of 5 per cent and went out on strike, while members of the Royal College of Nursing union have voted to reject the 7.5 per cent in 2022/2023 that was agreed by the rest of the health service. “We need to resolve these issues but there are limits [because] I can’t spend money I don’t have,” he said in an interview at the Scottish parliament. He added that while the government sympathised with workers who wanted to be compensated for the high cost of living: “We have to live within our means because we are required to balance the budget.”In December, the Scottish Fiscal Commission, Scotland’s spending watchdog, forecast that growth will be weak for the coming five years, predicting that it would be just 1.7 per cent in 2022/23 and just 1.5 per cent in 2027/28, which would further constrain the government’s ability to generate revenue. Graeme Roy, chair of the commission, said long-term structural issues, such as an ageing population, would hold back’s Scotland economic prospects relative to the rest of the UK. Under a combination of the Barnett formula — which is used by the UK Treasury to determine the annual block grants given to the devolved nations for spending on public services such as health and social security — and the taxation regime, the Scottish government was due to receive an extra £1.7bn for day-to-day spending in 2023-24. But this is set to be eroded by inflation to just £279mn in real terms, leaving the government with no option but to cut essential services if it wanted to fund bigger pay increases.The devolved administration may have managed to avoid winter stoppages in the NHS, but members of the Royal College of Nursing are holding out for a higher pay offer — although they agreed to hold off strikes while talks are continuing. Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union, meanwhile, are demanding a 10 per cent pay settlement. The union said it would “never” accept the government’s 5 per cent offer, which it said amounts to a 9 per cent reduction once inflation is taken into account and education has been disrupted by walkouts since late last year and are due to go on strike again on February 28. Instead of spending more on wages, Swinney said the Scottish government needed to accelerate reforms to “redesign” its public services.“There are constraints in public spending and there are reductions having to be made,” he said. “If I pay a 10 per cent pay increase, I just add to the scale of that problem.” More

TOKYO (Reuters) – Bank of Japan (BOJ) Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya, who is seen as a top contender to become next central bank chief, said on Friday he saw no imminent need to make further tweaks to its yield control policy.Speaking in parliament, Amamiya said he was mindful of the demerits of yield curve control (YCC), such as distortions in the yield curve caused by the BOJ’s huge bond buying to defend its 0.5% cap set for the 10-year bond yield.”YCC is an extraordinary policy, so we must carefully balance the benefits and costs,” Amamiya said.”For now, I don’t see the need to make further steps to enhance the flexibility of YCC,” he added.When asked by an opposition lawmaker whether tweaks to YCC could become a future option, Amamiya said: “In general, our basic approach is to guide monetary policy flexibly by weighing the benefits and costs of each step.”Markets are rife with speculation the BOJ will phase out YCC and raise interest rates under a successor to incumbent governor Haruhiko Kuroda, whose second, five-year term ends in April.Amamiya is considered by markets as among top contenders to succeed Kuroda, though a government spokesperson denied a report by the Nikkei newspaper on Monday that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration has sounded him out for the job.The government will present its nominees for the new BOJ governor and two deputies to parliament on Feb. 14, a ruling party lawmaker told reporters on Friday.Analysts see Amamiya as being more dovish on monetary policy than other contenders like former deputy governors Hiroshi Nakaso and Hirohide Yamaguchi.In the parliament session, Amamiya defended the central bank’s ultra-loose policy as having successfully reflated growth, and said it was “premature to debate any specific ideas of an exit policy”. He stressed the need to maintain current stimulus to ensure inflation hits the BOJ’s 2% target in a sustainable manner.The BOJ’s leadership transition comes at a time Kuroda’s radical stimulus programme is being put to test by creeping inflation – which hit 4% in December – and rising global interest rates.In a policy proposal last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged the BOJ to let government bond yields move more flexibly. Under YCC, the BOJ guides short-term rates at -0.1% and the 10-year yield around 0%. It allows the 10-year yield to move 0.5 basis point up and down each around the 0% target, and also buys risky assets like ETFs as part of its stimulus programme. More

In 2022, median annual pay was $52,000 for Americans with a bachelor’s degree, according to data released by the New York Federal Reserve Friday. That’s a 7.4% decline in inflation-adjusted terms — the steepest plunge since 2004, erasing nearly all of the pandemic-era gains. It was sharpest for those earning the most.Meanwhile, wages accelerated 6% in real terms to $34,320 for those with only a high-school diploma — the biggest gain in more than two decades. While secondary-degree holders are still paid more, those who didn’t attend college are catching up. Americans with only a high school diploma made 93% of what recent graduates with a bachelor’s degree in the bottom quarter of wages made. The ratio is up from 79% in 2021, and it’s back at the levels seen in 2019 when tight labor markets were boosting pay at the the lower end of the spectrum.The data underscore the demand for service-sector workers and those in segments of the economy where technical skills are more important than a college degree, such as plumbing and electrical work. It also shows the eroding value of an expensive bachelor’s degree as more Americans get one, increasing competition in that part of the labor market. More TakeawaysSince December 2020, wages have grown more rapidly for high school-only workers, according to the data that tracks median wages for those aged 22 to 27 who are working full-time. That’s a flip from the dynamics over the past 20 years, according to the Atlanta Fed Wage Tracker.Recent graduates are still able to find work pretty quickly, with an unemployment rate of 4.1% in December. That compares with 3.9% in March 2020. Not surprisingly, unemployment rates vary by college major. Nursing and education graduates experienced an unemployment rate below 2% as the industry desperately seeks to restaff after the pandemic exodus of workers. In fields such as philosophy, the rate exceeds 9%.©2023 Bloomberg L.P. More

Today’s top storiesGovernments and international organisations are stepping up financial support for Turkey and Syria as the death toll from this week’s earthquake surpassed 22,000 people, with millions expected to be displaced.Japan is expected to appoint Kazuo Ueda, a respected monetary policy expert, as its new central bank chief, ending speculation among global investors over the successor to Haruhiko Kuroda, who oversaw a decade of policies designed to keep interest rates at ultra-low levels by buying vast quantities of government bonds. The yen climbed in anticipation.Moldova’s prime minister Natalia Gavrilita quit, blaming a lack of support for her government as it struggles with the consequences of war in neighbouring Ukraine and efforts by Moscow to destabilise the country. For up-to-the-minute news updates, visit our live blogGood evening.It is perhaps a sign of the times that news this morning of UK growth flatlining in the fourth quarter of last year was hailed by chancellor Jeremy Hunt as evidence that the economy was “more resilient than many feared”.Output shrank more than expected in December, according to the Office for National Statistics, but GDP for the three-month period was unchanged, meaning the UK had, for now, dodged recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. It remains the only G7 member not to have recovered fully from the pandemic, in contrast with the US, which was up 5.1 per cent in the fourth quarter compared with 2019, and the eurozone, which was up 2.4 per cent.One bright spot is London, where new data yesterday showed the capital powering ahead of other regions in England, thanks to growth in professional services, underlining the challenges ahead for the government in delivering on its promise of “levelling up” left-behind areas.On the positive side, the outlook for inflation has improved since gas prices began to fall. Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey told a parliamentary committee yesterday that public sector workers needed to take this into account when asking for pay rises. The BoE predicts inflation will drop from 10.5 per cent to 4 per cent by the end of 2023. House prices meanwhile are showing their most widespread falls since 2009 as soaring mortgage rates hit buyer demand. The average rate for new loans reached 3.67 per cent in December, the highest in a decade, according to BoE data last week.All of which will be on Hunt’s mind as he prepares for his Budget on March 15. Business lobby groups are calling on the chancellor to use his speech to pave the way for growth through tax breaks for investment and policies to tackle worker shortages. They have also voiced concerns that the forthcoming increase in corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent will hit companies’ capital spending.Brexit costs for business meanwhile continue to mount, especially in areas such as chemicals where companies now have to adhere to UK-badged regulations as well as existing EU rules, for no tangible gain. Not to mention the question marks still hanging over the broader regulatory landscape thanks to the government’s intention to “review or revoke” all leftover EU laws by the end of this year.As UK chief political commentator Robert Shrimsley notes, the attempt by Hunt and his boss Rishi Sunak to emphasise fiscal prudence is not made any easier by noises off from Tory colleagues — especially those grouped around Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss — pining for another dose of unfunded tax cuts, despite the last attempt ending in disaster. Need to know: UK and Europe economySpurred by the decline in cash transactions, the UK government and the Bank of England have started work on the design of a “digital pound”. Read our explainer on how it might work and FT consumer editor Claer Barrett’s piece on whether it would be good for consumers.European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would fight back against “massive” hidden handouts from China to its industries, as well as responding to the US threat of green energy subsidies. The finance chief of ArcelorMittal, Europe’s largest steelmaker, told the FT that Brussels needed to simplify the approvals process for investments.German inflation hit a five-month low of 9.2 per cent, but the delayed data could lead to an upward revision to last week’s eurozone-wide figure of 8.5 per cent.Russia said it would cut its oil output by 5 per cent or 500,000 barrels a day in response to the price cap imposed by the west. Top energy trader Pierre Andurand said Vladimir Putin had “lost the energy war”. Putin will deliver a state-of-the-union address on February 21, three days before the first anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine. Join FT correspondents and guests at our subscriber webinar on February 23 from 1300-1400 GMT to mark the anniversary and what might happen next. Register for your free ticket at ft.com/ukraine-event.Need to know: Global economyChina has pulled back from its participation in a subsea cable project linking Asia with Europe as tensions grow with the US over who builds and owns the infrastructure underpinning the global internet.Hong Kong is pulling out all the stops to lure business back after three years of lockdowns in what it called “probably the world’s biggest welcome ever”. Attractions include set-up funds for international companies, visas for foreign graduates and 500,000 free airline tickets to encourage tourism.Dancers perform at the Hello Hong Kong campaign launch event. © Lam Yik/BloombergNeed to know: businessAdidas is facing €700mn in operating losses thanks to its pile of unsold Kanye West “Yeezy” sneakers. The group issued its fourth profit warning since July, laying out a worst-case scenario in which it would have to write off all the remaining inventory.Disney is to cut 7,000 jobs, about 3 per cent of its workforce, as part of a cost-saving restructuring. The changes led to activist investor Nelson Peltz calling off his proxy fight against the company which was set to be one of the biggest corporate battles in recent years.Credit Suisse reported its biggest annual loss since the 2008 financial crisis as investment banking slumped and clients pulled money from its wealth management business. Here’s our Big Read on a make-or-break moment for the bank.The FT Magazine dives into the bizarre final hours of FTX and how Sam Bankman-Fried and his crew of millennial millionaires lost a $40bn crypto empire.Global investors are betting big on China’s reopening, snapping up a record $21bn of Chinese equities since the start of the year. The trend has been fuelled by positive economic data published after the lunar new year holiday. Science round upThe spread of antibiotic resistance has revived interest in the bacteria-killing viruses known as phages, first discovered and used to fight infection a century ago. Read more in our special report: Future of Antibiotics.The inventor of the silicon technology behind solar power told the FT that combining other materials with the silicon could boost the efficiency of photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity from 25 per cent to more than 40 per cent.The fusion energy industry called for more political support to build on last year’s breakthrough by US scientists that demonstrated the possibility of producing more energy from a fusion reaction than it consumed, dubbed “one of the most impressive scientific feats in the 21st century”.New technology that uses fibre optics to find the causes of heart disease has begun testing at London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital. The iKOr device measures blood flow around the heart and could eventually help many patients suffering from problems such as chest pains, whose cause cannot be identified with current techniques.And finally, the European Space Agency is preparing for one of the most ambitious space projects ever, a 12-year mission to the outer solar system to investigate whether three of Jupiter’s moons might support life. Some good newsUniversity of California researchers have identified tiny organisms that not only survive but thrive during the first year after a wildfire. The findings could help bring land back to life after fires that are increasing in both size and severity.Something for the weekendThe FT Weekend interactive crossword will be published here on Saturday, but in the meantime why not try today’s cryptic crossword? More

The US will allow the UK to keep its exemption from foreign investment screenings for certain real estate and non-controlling deals, after concluding that Britain had set up a strong enough regime of its own.The decision on Friday represents a vote of confidence from Washington in Britain’s new and tougher law on foreign investment, which was implemented last year and has already resulted in the blocking of several high-profile planned Chinese investments.The move to clear the UK was made by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), an inter-agency body chaired by Treasury secretary Janet Yellen.The US tightened its own foreign investment screening regime through a 2018 law enacted by former president Donald Trump amid growing concern in Washington that some Chinese investments posed a threat to national security. The US rules expanded Cfius reviews to include certain non-controlling and real estate transactions, as well as mandatory, rather than voluntary, filing requirements for ordinary takeovers where there is a change of control.At the time, the Treasury decided to carve out an exemption from those tougher measures for some countries in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, as long as they could prove that their domestic regimes were tough enough to prevent them serving as backdoor routes to the US for risky foreign investments.Last year the US said Canada and Australia would continue to qualify as “excepted foreign states” under the new rules. But it had to make a decision on the fate of the UK and New Zealand by February 13. New Zealand was also cleared on Friday, meaning all of America’s Five Eyes allies will remain on the US’s foreign investment whitelist.“The United States thoroughly reviews foreign investment for national security risks, and it is critical that our allies also identify and address risks from malign foreign investment,” said Paul Rosen, the US Treasury’s assistant secretary for investment security.“Today’s actions reflect that our Five Eye allies have all stood up and implemented their own robust foreign investment screening programmes. We look forward to continuing to co-ordinate with all of them on matters relating to investment security,” he added.Britain’s National Security and Investment Act, which came into effect in January 2022, gives the UK government much greater powers to block overseas takeovers that raise potential security concerns.The NSIA is among the most far-reaching takeover regimes in the world, covering 17 sensitive sectors, and it can be applied retrospectively to deals going back as far as November 2020.Its introduction came against the backdrop of cooling Beijing-London relations and growing British caution about Chinese investment in UK industry. In 2020, the UK government banned the use of Chinese company Huawei’s equipment in its new 5G telecoms network.The NSIA regime was used to block the sale of Newport Wafer Fab, a Welsh company, to Chinese-owned Nexperia in November.

That intervention came after nine members of the US House of Representatives urged President Joe Biden to reconsider Britain’s status on the white list unless it blocked the deal.In July, the UK government announced a ban on the sale of computer-vision technology from Manchester university to a Chinese semiconductor company. Officials said the rejected buyer, Beijing Infinite Vision Technology, was a Chinese commercial fabless semiconductor group with state links.In December, the government used the NSIA to order LetterOne, an investment company backed by oligarchs, to sell regional broadband provider Upp. More

If nothing else, quantitative easing has constituted a full-employment act for monetary economists. More than a decade on from the birth of the QE era we are still debating what effect it had, if any. A quick search on SSRN yields over 1,000 papers on QE, and over 500 on the National Bureau of Economic Research’s website. Then there are the millions of sellside research reports, think-tank papers, comment pieces and hedge fund letters (and, cough, a few AV posts and comments). Conclusions range from QE being the economic equivalent of crack cocaine that at best only creates “a financial fantasyland” and “underwrites inequality”, to it saving the world from financial cataclysms and even making us bonk more. Strong early contender for paper of the new decade. Easier monetary policy led to more post-crisis babies, Bank of England estimates. https://t.co/AyaLTtMDtJ Your best liquidity and stimulus jokes in the comments please.— Robin Wigglesworth (@RobinWigg) January 2, 2020
The size and perhaps especially the duration of the post-Covid stimulus is particularly controversial, given that stimulus this time actually did seem to lead to faster inflation. (FTAV suspects this is almost all because of fiscal policy and global supply chain issues then compounded by a huge systemic energy shock, but anyways.)A new paper by Andrew Levin, professor of economics at Dartmouth and visiting scholar at the IMF, his undergraduate student Brian Lu and the Bank Policy Institute’s chief economist William Nelson has explored the costs and benefits of this “QE4” programme. They are unimpressed:QE4 was initially aimed at mitigating strains in markets for Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities but was subsequently aimed more broadly at supporting market functioning and providing monetary stimulus. Nonetheless, QE4 did not have any notable benefits in reducing term premiums. Moreover, since the securities purchases were financed by expanding the Fed’s short-term liabilities, QE4 amplified the interest rate risk associated with the publicly-held debt of the consolidated federal government. Our simulation analysis indicates that QE4 is likely to reduce the Federal Reserve’s remittances to the U.S. Treasury by about $760 billion over the next ten years.Let’s unpick this a little. That the truly massive dose of stimulus the Fed unleashed when the pandemic stuck — it bought almost $2tn of bonds between March and June 2020 — undoubtedly helped avert what could have been a ruinous financial crisis on top of twin health and economic crises. Levin, Lu and Nelson concede this, and therefore explicitly treat the initial salvo as distinct from later bond purchases that were mostly to balm the economic pain of lockdowns. But they argue that the impact was negligible and the longer-term financial losses that will accrue will hurt taxpayers. Here are their main findings:– Program Design: The evolution of the QE4 program was opaque and inertial. Moreover, the FOMC minutes did not report any substantive discussions of cost-benefit analysis at any stage of the program, as though the costs were minor and the benefits were clear-cut.  — Consequences for Market Functioning: The Federal Reserve’ actions at the onset of the pandemic helped stabilize markets for Treasuries and MBS. Over time, however, QE4 continued to expand the Federal Reserve’s outsized footprint in those markets, which could substantially reduce market liquidity going forward. Indeed, the SOMA now holds nearly 30% of the outstanding stock of Treasury notes and bonds and more than 40% of the total outstanding stock of agency MBS, and its QE4 purchases comprised nearly the entire issuance of agency MBS over the period that the program was being conducted.  — Balance Sheet Normalization. Our baseline projection indicates that the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet will reach a trough in late 2024 and then resume expanding to meet policymakers’ criterion of providing an “ample” supply of reserve balances. However, the composition of the SOMA’s asset holdings will remain far from normal, with a small proportion of Treasury bills and a glacial pace of agency MBS runoff.  — Interest Rate Risk. By purchasing medium- and longer-term Treasuries and financing those purchases by creating short-term interest-bearing liabilities, the FOMC incurred substantial interest rate risk, i.e., risk to the net interest income of its balance sheet. The FOMC’s purchases of agency MBS were associated with even greater risk because mortgage prepayments decline sharply in response to increased mortgage rates. — Implications for Consolidated Federal Debt. The FOMC’s actions substantially reduced the average maturity of the interest-bearing liabilities of the consolidated federal government sector (which includes the Federal Reserve). Thus, while the U.S. Treasury was issuing notes and bonds to “lock in” low interest rates and reduce the expense of financing the federal debt over coming years, QE4 practically canceled out those efforts. — Cost to Taxpayers. Based on the term structure of interest rates at the end of June 2022, our baseline projection indicates that over the next ten years the Federal Reserve’s total net interest income and its corresponding remittances to the U.S. Treasury (and hence the federal government’s total net revenue on a consolidated basis) will be about $760 billion lower than in the counterfactual scenario with no QE4 purchases. Moreover, only a small portion of that cost (about $120 billion) is associated with securities purchases when the Federal Reserve was serving as market-maker of last resort at the onset of the pandemic.  — Assessment of Benefits. The QE4 program did not have any significant effect in reducing term premiums and hence does not appear to have contributed to the very rapid pace of economic recovery in 2020-21. Some of this looks a bit . . . unpersuasive? Here are some initial thoughts on their criticisms. The idea that the Fed should have waited to conduct a detailed and transparent cost-benefit analysis when first rolling out the stimulus in March 2020 seems ludicrous, for example. Speed and scale were of the essence.Just because the FOMC meeting minutes don’t feature detailed subsequent discussion as the stimulus was extended doesn’t mean that it was never discussed by the board or staff either. And this is probably the most discussed and dissected issue of monetary economic of the past decade. What more was there to say? The Fed thinks it works, ergo they did it. The controversial “cost to taxpayers” is also bit of a mirage, as we’ve written before. Firstly, the Fed has already sent Treasury $869bn of profits from earlier QE programmes. You can’t just look at the L part of the P&L. Secondly, who really cares anyway? Normal accounting rules don’t apply to central banks. The Fed can create money and operate with negative equity. It’s not a hedge fund. It sets policy to modulate the economy, not to turn a profit. The idea that the average maturity of the consolidated US public sector debt has been shortened also seems inconsequential. There is no rollover risk! Treasury can always lengthen out maturities further again if it wishes, but doesn’t actually try to time lows in yields and “lock in” low interest rates anyway. Otherwise there would have been helluva lot of expensive 30-year Treasuries issued in 2009, and in 2010, and in 2011, and in 2012 etc etc . . . Lastly, solely looking at term premiums as the only gauge of any economic impact also seems a bit simplistic. One can certainly have an argument about whether the Fed should have curtailed its purchases much sooner, when growth rebounded strongly in 2021, inflation was clearly firming up and becoming problematic. But there are myriad direct and indirect ways that QE4 likely contributed to the vim of the economic recovery.Anyway, take a look at the full paper and let us know your own thoughts. More

LONDON (Reuters) -European stocks fell on Friday as investors fretted about the impact of interest rate hikes on growth, while the yen benefited from reports that academic Kazuo Ueda was set to be appointed Japan’s next central bank governor.The MSCI World Equity Index was down 0.5% on the day at 1258 GMT, on track for its worst week since mid-December.Europe’s STOXX 600 was down 1.5% and on track for a weekly loss, while London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.7%.U.S. stock futures also fell, with Nasdaq e-minis down 1.2% and S&P 500 e-minis down 0.7%.Maximilian Kunkel, chief investment officer for Germany and global family and institutional wealth, said that recent earnings reports, particularly for U.S. technology companies, have hit market sentiment.”The focus is shifting away from the positive impact of disinflation towards concerns around growth.””People (are) realizing that the earning season hasn’t actually been all that great,” he said. “Investors are starting to expect lower profit margins as inflation comes down.”The week was also dominated by hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials.Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said on Thursday that tight monetary policy is “unequivocally” slowing the U.S. economy, allowing the Federal Reserve to move “more deliberately” with any further interest rate increases.The U.S. dollar index was up around 0.3% at 103.51, while the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit a new one-month high of 3.717%.Money markets now expect a peak in the current Fed rate cycle at around 5.15% in July.The yen broadly strengthened after reports that the Japanese government was set to appoint academic Kazuo Ueda as the central bank’s next governor.The dollar was down 0.5% against the yen, with the pair at 130.84.”The news surprised the market as he would bring a bit more of a hawkish tilt to monetary policy than the top contender, Masayoshi Amamiya,” ING said in a note to clients, adding that the market reaction could prove “temporary”.”We don’t think he is expected to immediately change the BoJ’s policy stance,” ING said.In Europe, German government bond yields edged higher, heading towards their most significant weekly rise so far this year as European Central Bank policymakers fought back against market expectations for a quick end to rate hikes.The benchmark 10-year German yield was at 2.347%.Britain’s economy showed zero growth in the final three months of 2022, gross domestic product data showed, narrowly avoiding recession.Meanwhile, oil prices jumped more than 2%, heading for weekly gains, as Russia announced plans to reduce oil production next month.Brent crude futures and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were both up 2.1%.Investor focus will now be on U.S. consumer price data due on Tuesday. More

That was lower than the 4.5% expected by analysts polled by Reuters. In November output topped 7% while in December 2022 it rose 1%.Industrial output for April-December rose 5.4% versus 15.3% in the same period last year when the data reflected a low base effect due to the pandemic.In December, manufacturing rose 2.6% year on year compared with a 0.6% expansion last year.Mining output rose 9.8% versus 2.6% a year earlier.Electricity consumption rose 10.4% against 2.8% last year, the data showed. “The YoY growth in the IIP is likely to improve in the ongoing quarter partly boosted by the typical year-end push in volumes to achieve targets,” said Aditi Nayar, an economist at ICRA.India’s fiscal year starts April 1 and runs through March.Nayar added that a fall in exports due to global weakness will be a key risk to India’s manufacturing sector. More