BUSINESS NEWS – DECEMBER 2009

Tuesday, December 01st 2009
Cheers for the Indian Economy
It's been better than the best of predictions. Data released at the Centre has shown that the Indian economy has grown 7.9% year on year during the second quarter of the 2009-2010 fiscal, which is also the highest quarterly growth that India has seen in the last 18 months. Experts feel that the surpassing of official estimates (6.5%) has partly been due to the agricultural sector, which defeated monsoon worries to turn up better-than-expected performance. Manufacturing output also expanded 9.2% in the September quarter. Investor sentiments peaked on the back of this unexpected GDP growth and the BSE index ended 294 points higher at 16926. 

Tuesday, December 01st 2009
Asian markets overcome Dubai Scare
As the United Arab Emirates Central Bank put in place regulatory measures to renew confidence in its banking sector, the heavy sell-off of Asian shares in global markets (sparked by fears over the Dubai debt crisis) was partly reversed with a majority of Asian indexes recording a rise. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index went up by more than 3% in morning trade, the benchmark Kospi in Seoul was up 2.47% intraday while Sydney surged 2.77% in mid-trade. In Tokyo, markets were further enthused by a rise in factory output and the news that the government was likely to inject additional stimulus worth $31 billion in the current fiscal in order to revive its sagging economy. The Tokyo index registered a rise of 2.39% while Chinese shares rose 0.65%. However markets are yet to recoup the major losses that they sustained immediately after news of the Dubai crisis rocked the financial world.

Thursday, December 03rd 2009
RBI proposes FEMA amendments in favour of expat employees
The RBI has amended the Foreign Exchange Management Act to the effect that expatriate employees can now take 100% of their post tax salary home, as against the 75% earlier. This move is expected to attract foreign talent in the sectors where it is much needed, such as aviation, telecom, infrastructure etc.