Daily Research Report || March. 29, 2023

In the current fiscal year 2022-23, India's total exports (including goods and services) are expected to exceed $760 billion. Exports of goods and services totaled $676 billion in the preceding fiscal year. According to Department of Commerce estimates, product exports increased by 7.5% from April to February to $405.94 billion, while services exports increased by 30.4 percent to $296.94 billion.

In a recent circular, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) directed that Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI) fees be charged to merchant transactions via the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) commencing April 1. The NCPI, the regulatory body of UPI, stated in the circular that utilising PPIs on UPI for sums more than ₹2,000 will result in interchange at 1.1% of the transaction value. The interchange charge is commonly connected with credit card payments and is assessed to cover the expenses of accepting, processing, and authorising transactions.

In a flurry of year-end fund-raising activities, 14 state governments and one union territory gathered ₹41,200 crore in the current fiscal year's last bond sale (FY23). The sum was 67% more than the amount announced for State Government Securities (SGS) this week. The weighted average duration of the borrowings increased to 16 years from 14 years, while the weighted average cut-off of the SGS increased by seven basis points (bps) to 7.81 percent on Tuesday from 7.74%  at the previous auction. 

The growing capital expenditure (capex) trend of Indian corporations is expected to continue and expand at a pace of 10%-12% per year in the fiscal year ending March 2024. Apex remained steady from FY19 to FY21 and increased by 16% in FY22. The estimates are for the country's eight state-owned firms and 21 privately held Fitch-rated corporations. In recent years, Indian banks have repaired non-performing loans and reduced credit costs, and they are well positioned to fulfil corporate finance needs.

Vedanta Ltd has approved a Rs 7,621 crore interim dividend for the current fiscal year. The company has set April 7 as the record date for dividend payment. The board also accepted Ajay Goel's resignation as Acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Key Managerial Personnel (KMP) with effect from the end of work hours on April 9.

The second tranche of the solar PLI (production-linked incentive) plan has allocated funds to leading energy-sector businesses in several categories. The most money, Rs 3,300 crore, went to Indosol Solar, a Shirdi Sai special purpose vehicle that was also a winner in the first tranche of solar PLI. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), which has got Rs 3,098 crore, follows. The newest entry is US-based solar-panel producer First Solar, which, along with RIL and Indosol, will construct end-to-end polysilicon-wafer-cells-modules (PWCM).

Jindal Stainless, India's largest stainless-steel business, and New Yaking Pte, a subsidiary of Eternal Tsingshan Singapore, have agreed to establish a nickel pig iron (NPI) smelter in Indonesia. JSL would spend Rs 1,200-1,300 crore, giving it a 49 percent interest in the joint venture (JV) business, with New Yaking owning the remainder. The smelter would be a greenfield project that would take roughly two years to complete.

Central and state authorities conducted joint inspections at 76 pharmaceutical enterprises and terminated the licences of 18 of them for producing bogus and contaminated pharmaceuticals as part of a massive crackdown on the manufacture of substandard drugs. In the last 15 days, inspections were conducted in 20 states and union territories.