Aurelia Butler

The canal is the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia and one of the Egyptian government’s main sources of foreign currency. More

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s government will step up spending to 39.45 trillion rupees ($529.7 billion) in the coming fiscal year to build public infrastructure and drive economic growth, it said on Tuesday, but it involves a wider fiscal deficit than targeted and record borrowing.Asia’s third-largest economy has been on the mend after the government lifted mobility measures in June to curb the spread of coronavirus, after contracting 6.6% in the previous fiscal year.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting the annual budget to parliament, said total government spending in the 2022/23 fiscal year beginning in April will be 4.6% more than the current year. Trillions of rupees will be allocated to expressways, affordable housing and solar manufacturing to put growth on a firmer footing, she said. Growth is estimated to be 9.2% for 2021/2022, coming off a low base and slowing to 8 to 8.5% in the coming fiscal year, still the fastest among the world’s major economies. GRAPHIC – India’s Economic Grow in Modi’s tenure The recovery from the pandemic has been swift but incomplete, officials say. Private consumption has been hampered by a lack of jobs, depleted household balance sheets and wider income inequalities.Sitharaman said public investment must continue to take the lead and pump prime private investment and demand.”The economy has shown strong resilience to come out of the effects of the pandemic with high growth. However, we need to sustain that level to make up for the setback of 2020/21,” she said. She announced spending of 200 billion rupees ($2.68 billion) for a highway expansion programme and said 400 new trains would be manufactured over the next three years. The fiscal deficit for the current year would be 6.9% of GDP, slightly more than the 6.8% targeted earlier, Sitharaman said, drawing concern in the bond market. For the next fiscal year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is targeting a deficit of 6.4% of GDP, hoping to build on higher tax revenues and privatisation of state firms including a share sale of giant insurer Life Insurance Corporation.“It’s a big bang budget, but depends on where one stands on the bang perimeter. The massive ramp-up of capital spending and focus on infrastructure cements the budget’s credentials as a firmly growth-oriented one,” said Aurodeep Nandi, India Economist and Vice President at Nomura. GRAPHIC – India’s fiscal deficit shot to record highs in 2020-21https://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-FISCALDEFICIT/INDIA/byvrjmzllve/chart.png Gross borrowing for 2022/23 was raised 40% to 14.95 trillion rupees. Gross borrowing by the Modi government has more than doubled during the pandemic as New Delhi went on a spending spree to cushion the economy and provide relief to the poor.The benchmark 10-year bond yield IN065432G=CC rose 15 basis points, posting its biggest single-day rise since May 11, 2020. It had earlier hit levels last seen in early July 2019. The rupee INR=IN closed 0.2% weaker at 74.79 to the dollar. GRAPHIC – Retail inflation since India’s Modi came to powerhttps://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-INFLATION/INDIA/zdpxoqmqyvx/chart.png “Despite the higher than expected growth, we still saw a fiscal deficit that was wider than what was budgeted. That continues to demonstrate the risks that are still ongoing from the pandemic,” said Christian de Guzman, senior vice president, at Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) Investors Service. GARPHIC – India Govt Borrowing More Than Doubles Over 5 Yrshttps://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-BORROWING/INDIA/movanyjgnpa/chart.png Stocks were higher on the growth-oriented budget with the blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 stock index gaining 1.37% and the S&P BSE Sensex adding 1.46%.SLOWER PRIVATISATION, DIGITAL CURRENCYThe government sharply scaled back its plans to sell state-run companies after political criticism and market turmoil, expecting to raise 650 billion rupees from the privatisation programme next fiscal year, lower than the revised 780 billion target for the current fiscal year. Initially, it had announced it would raise 1.75 trillion rupees this fiscal year. After years of efforts the government succeeded in selling loss-making carrier Air India last month, but failed to move forward on other companies and banks identified for sale.Sitharaman also said the central bank would introduce a digital currency in the next fiscal year using blockchain and other supporting technology.India’s central bank has voiced “serious concerns” around private cryptocurrencies on the grounds that these may cause financial instability.($1 = 74.5550 Indian rupees) More

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s budget for fiscal 2022-23 gave a thrust to its technology sector, with the finance minister announcing a plan to auction 5G airwaves this year, and pushing for the design and wider local manufacturing of telecoms and electronics products.The airwaves auction in India, the world’s second-biggest wireless market with over a billion subscribers, will kick off a rollout of next-generation 5G telecoms services by end-March 2023, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament as she presented the country’s budget on Tuesday.During a news briefing, Sitharaman declined to speculate on how much revenue the 5G auction would raise.Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will also offer incentives to encourage more design-led manufacturing to boost 5G in the country, Sitharaman said, adding that all of India’s villages are likely to be connected by optical fiber for faster broadband services by 2025.”The finance minister’s announcement around 5G spectrum auction, 100% fiberisation with public-private partnership model will provide an impetus to build ubiquitous and reliable internet connectivity,” said Nitin Bansal, the India managing director at Swedish telecoms gear maker Ericsson (BS:ERICAs).”Design-led initiatives for 5G… will strengthen the ‘Make in India’ initiative, and contribute to making India a global manufacturing hub.”India bailed out its cash-strapped telecoms sector last year with a slew of measures including a four-year moratorium on airwaves payments due to it and allowing mobile carriers to convert interest they owe New Delhi into equity.That has helped telecoms firms free up cash to invest in growth and expansion, potentially making a 5G airwaves auction this year a hot bidding contest between the country’s three main carriers – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD) Idea.Jio, the telecoms venture of conglomerate Reliance Industries which counts global tech giants Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) among its backers, has previously said it will be the first carrier to launch 5G services in India.On Tuesday, India also announced a plan to gradually raise import taxes on some components used in electronic products such as smartwatches and earphones to boost local assembly.Modi’s government has used import tax barriers and production-linked incentives to boost electronics manufacturing in India. That move has helped companies including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s key suppliers Foxconn and Wistron to widen local operations and turned India into the world’s second-biggest smartphone maker. More

Investing.com — Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) and United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) release earnings, while the ISM puts out its monthly U.S. manufacturing survey.  Stocks are set to consolidate after a sharp rebound in response to a change of tone from the Federal Reserve. And oil prices ease after newswires report OPEC predicting that the global market will swing back into surplus this year. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Tuesday, 1st February. 1.  New economy earnings, old economy earningsTwo updates from opposite ends of the investing spectrum lead the day’s earnings calendar, allowing a rough comparison of whether the old or new economy represents better value at the current levels.Exxon Mobil reports before the open, and is expected to report a sharp improvement in cash flow due to resurgent oil and gas prices in the fourth quarter. More important, however, will be its guidance and what that says about the sustainability of a rally that has continued since the start of the year, taking crude prices to their highest since 2014.After the close, Alphabet will report its fourth-quarter earnings. The owner of Google and one of the world’s biggest Cloud-hosting operations had a strong year in 2021 as advertisers paid up handsomely to reach an audience that was still largely home-bound. Analysts will be looking for any sign of that momentum flagging in line with consumer-focused macro indicators in the last two months.2. The Fed’s slight change of focusTwo senior Federal Reserve officials pushed back against the spreading opinion that the central bank will raise interest rates by much more than it has guided for this year.Kansas City Fed President Esther George and her San Francisco counterpart Mary Daly both pushed back against the notion of rapid-fire rate increases, albeit both remained committed to tightening policy.George, a noted ‘hawk’ on inflation who holds one of the rotating votes on the Federal Open Market Committee this year, said that it would be better to run down the balance sheet more quickly, thus pushing up long-term rates and keeping the yield curve steep.Daly, a non-voting member on the FOMC this year, was more overtly dovish, telling a Reuters event that tightening should be “gradual and not disruptive.”3. Stocks set to open lowerThe stock market’s strong end to January is struggling to translate into a bright start for February. After rebounding sharply on Monday in response to comments coming out of the Fed, the main indices are marked lower again in overnight trading.By 6:15 AM ET (1115 GMT), Dow Jones futures were down 42 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.3% and NASDAQ 100 futures were down 0.2%.Companies likely to be in focus later include Sony (NYSE:SONY), whose $3.6 billion acquisition of Destiny publisher Bungie appears at first glance to be an underwhelming response to Microsoft’s deal for Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) last month. Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA), also mooted as a possible takeover target in the current environment, reports earnings later, along with United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) and Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE:SWK) before the open, and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) after the close.The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index heads the data calendar at 10 AM ET.4. Tesla to recall over 50,000 cars due to crash riskTesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is to recall over 53,000 cars due to suspected crash risks.Newswires reported the National Highways Traffic Safety Administration as saying that the company’s “Full Self-Driving” software may allow vehicles to travel through an all-way stop intersection without first coming to a stop.The company had to recall nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars at the end of last year to fix issues with rearview cameras and trunks that also contributed to crash risks. Tesla said at the time it wasn’t aware of any crashes caused by the risks that the NHTSA flagged.5. Crude slips on OPEC forecasts; API dueCrude oil prices edged lower after newswires quoted sources close to OPEC as seeing the global market in surplus by over 1 million barrels a day this year.The forecasts are among those due to be analysed by OPEC’s Joint Technical Committee meeting on Tuesday, ahead of the regular review of output quotas by OPEC and allies led by Russia later in the week. U.S. crude futures edged down 0.2% to $88.00 a barrel, while Brent crude fell 0.3% to $89.05 a barrel.The American Petroleum Institute releases its weekly inventory data at 4:30 PM as usual. More