Morning Alert..
*Discounts lift Russia's fertiliser exports, becomes top supplier to India*
Russia for the first time became the biggest fertilizer supplier to India in the first half of the 2022/23 fiscal year by offering discounts over prevailing global prices, cornering more than a fifth of the market share, government and industry sources said. India's fertilizer imports from Russia surged 371% to a record 2.15 million tonnes in the first six months of the year started on April 1, a senior government official who was closely monitoring the imports, told Reuters. He declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. In value terms, India's imports during the period spiked 765% to $1.6 billion, he said. In the last entire fiscal year India imported 1.26 million tonnes from Russia. "India was struggling to secure fertilizers at reasonable prices after conflict escalated between Russia and Ukraine.
*Export duty removal will lead to era of growth for steel industry: Scindia*
Removal of export duty on steel products will lead to a new era of growth for the domestic steel industry which has gained footprint internationally, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Monday. It has taken years for the domestic steel industry to gain footprint in the international markets, the steel minister said at the 3rd Indian Steel Association (ISA) conference here. The government has cut the export duty on steel products and iron ore to nil with effect from November 19, 2022 -- six months after imposition of the levy on May 21. "It has taken if not months then years for our industry to be able to to firmly plant its footprint internationally... (On) steel product, the duty has been removed completely from Friday evening enabling a new era for the steel industry to grow," he said. The decision was taken very judiciously after taking all stakeholders' concerns into account.
*Crisil, Icra revise India's growth projections for FY23, Q2 GDP slashed*
Rating agencies Crisil and Icra on Monday revised down their India growth projections for the current fiscal and the second quarter mainly due to the ripple effect of slowdown in global growth and mixed crop output. Crisil downgraded the India growth forecast by 30 bps to 7 per cent while Icra pegged the economic expansion at 6.5 per cent for the second quarter of FY2022-23. "We have revised down our forecast for real gross domestic product growth to 7 per cent for fiscal 2023 from 7.3 per cent, primarily because of the slowdown in global growth that has started to impact our exports and industrial activity. This will test the resilience of domestic demand," Crisil chief economist Dharmakirti Joshi said in a note. Aditi Nayar, his counterpart at Icra, in her report pencilled a 6.5 per cent growth in Q2 of the current fiscal, nearly half of the year-ago quarter when the economy had clipped at 12.7 per cent, but which is still a tad higher than the monetary policy committee's September forecast of 6.3 per cent and at 6.5 per cent in gross value added (GVA) less than half of 13.5 per cent a year ago.
*Commodity play*
Gold – Rs 52262/10gm, Silver – Rs 60308/kg, Brcrude – Rs 6448/barrel, Degumsyoil – Rs 1296/10kg, Copper – Rs 668/kg.
*Corporate News*
HDFC Bank, Canara Bank get RBI approval for rupee trade with Russia.
Jio gets NCLT green light to acquire debt-laden Reliance Infratel.
AM/NS India completes Rs 16,500 cr acquisition of Essar group infra assets.
SGX Nifty indicates a positive start to Indian markets trading at 18250 level up by 0.25% or 40 points. However Dow Jones ended yesterday slightly red down by 0.13%.
Sector in focus – Banks, Telecommunication, Chemicals & Real-Estate.
