BACK PAGE, P12 COMPANIES, P4 INTERNATIONAL, P7 GOVT HOLDS DISCUSSIONS CLOUD OVER $1.5-BN AGREEMENT LARGEST SINCE NOV 2022 Truckers’ protest leads to panic buying of fuel Disney Star in a fix over ICC TV rights deal with Zee China injects $50 bn into policy banks in stimulus push CHENNAI/KOCHI, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2024 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL NO. XLIV 203, 12 PAGES, `12.00 P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E SENSEX: 71,892.50 ▼ 379.44 NIFTY: 21,665.80 ▼ 76.10 NIKKEI 225: 33,464.17 ▼ 75.45 HANG SENG: 16,788.55 ▼ 258.84 `/$: 83.32 ▼ 0.08 `/€: 91.78 ▲ 0.20 BRENT: $78.55 ▲ $1.51 GOLD: `63,366 ▲ `263 THE SUPREME Court will on Wednesday pronounce its verdict on a batch of petitions on the Adani-Hindenburg row over allegations of stock price manipulation against the group. EXPLAINER Why RBI wants lower bank reliance on bulk deposits ■ PAGE 9 FY23 6.4 FY24BE 5.9 FY25* 5.2 FY20 FY21 FY22 11 12.7 FY23 FY24BE FY25* *Likely enue expenditure could be compressed to below 11% from 11.6% in FY24 to accommodate a 70-basis point reduction in fiscal deficit,the sources added. “We anticipate that the FY25 Budget will aim to bridge half the gap between the FY24 fiscal deficit and the medium-term target. Accordingly,we foreseethe FY25 fiscal deficit to be targeted at around 5.2-5.3% of GDP,” Icra chief economist Aditi Nayar said. Continued on Page 7 380 stocks hit 52-week highs daily in Dec AN AVERAGE of 380 stocks hit 52-week highs on a daily basis in December 2023 — the highest in the past 23 months, reports Kishor Kadam. In January 2022, 413 stocks hit 52-week highs daily on an average. Of 4,000 actively-traded stocks listed on BSE, 1,600 hit 52-week highs in December. These included 22 from Sensex, 73 from BSE 100, and 270 from BSE 500. 450 375 413 380 Number of securities touching 52-week high (Daily average) 300 225 150 146 75 0 141 Dec 2022 Jan 2023 Jan 2022 Dec 2023 Sensex stocks that hit new 52-week highs in December ■ Axis Bank ■ IndusInd Bank ■ Nestle India ■ Tata Steel ■ Bajaj Finserv ■ JSW Steel ■ NTPC ■ TCS ■ Bharti Airtel ■ Larsen & Toubro ■ Power Grid Corp ■ Tech Mahindra ■ HCL Technologies ■M&M ■ SBI ■ Titan Company ■ ICICI Bank ■ Maruti Suzuki ■ Sun Pharma ■ UltraTech Cement ■ Tata Motors ■ Wipro Source: BSE, Capitaline Revenue expenditure 3.3 Capital expenditure 11.6 Spending (% of GDP) 3.3 BUDGET FY22 6.7 2.7 SC VERDICT ON ADANI-HINDENBURG PLEAS TODAY WITH BUOYANTREVENUES likelyensuring that the 5.9% fiscal deficit target is met in the current financial year, the Centre may target to bring it down to 5.2% in FY25,while sticking to the medium-term glide path for 4.5% deficit by FY26. However,thiswould entail compression of the revenue deficit, more sedate growth in capital expenditure than what was seen in the FY23 and FY24 budget estimates, as well as aggressive disinvestRUN-UP TO THE ment, INTERIM sources said. Sticking to the glide 2024-25 path is necessary for Indiato curbgeneral government debt (GGD) and prevent it from rising again. Responding to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) forecast of India's GGD overshooting 100% of the gross domestic product (GDP) underaworst-casescenario by FY28, the finance ministry has recently said that the Centre is “on track to achieve its statedfiscalconsolidationtarget”ofreducing fiscal deficit to below 4.5% by FY26. While the Union government may try to maintain the capex at around 3% of GDP in FY25 from 3.3% budgeted in FY24, the rev- FY21 9.2 13.7 WEEKS AFTER banning onion exports, the government is again assessing the situation and is likely to reconsider a ban to stem the sharp fall in the mandi prices of the vegetable, reports Sandip Das. ■ PAGE 2 PRASANTA SAHU New Delhi, January 2 FY20 4.6 2.5 GOVT REVIEWS BAN ON ONION EXPORTS AS PRICES PLUNGE To further rein in revenue ON THE RIGHT TRACK expenditure-GDP ratio Fiscal deficit (% of GDP) 15.6 THE RESERVE Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday floated a draft circular proposing to tighten dividend payout guidelines for domestic and overseas banks operating in India, reports Piyush Shukla. ■ PAGE 6 2.2 RBI PROPOSES TIGHTER NORMS FOR DIVIDENDS FY25 fiscal deficit target likely at 5.2% 11.7 NEWS GOVT MAY STICK TO GLIDE PATH 1.7 IN THE No extra tariffs on steel exports to US MUKESH JAGOTA New Delhi, January 2 INDIA AND THE US have agreed on the terms forjoint monitoring of the former’s steelandaluminiumexportstotheworld’s largest economy,without being subjected to additional duties. This follows the two sides deciding to end all bilateral trade disputes that were pending at the World Trade Organization during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington in June 2023. India’s department of commerce has finalised the terms of references with regardtothejointmonitoringmechanism to enable exports of certain steel and aluminium products to the US,without pay- ing extra duties,and the US has conveyed its agreement with the proposed text, a senior official said here on Tuesday. The US has agreed to let in 336,000 tonne of steel and aluminium from India with the waiver of additional duties that were imposed under a national security lawbytheTrump administration in 2018. These duties — at 25% and 10% on certain steel and aluminium products, respectively—were also imposed on a few other countries, including China, Russia, Norway,Turkey and Switzerland. The June decision also included India waiving its additional duties of 20% each on apples and walnuts,and `20 per kg on almonds imposed on imports from the US in2019,overmost-favourednation(MFN) tariffs.These extra imposts were in retaliation to the US’ state protectionist measure of increasing tariffs on specified steel and aluminium products. 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