Rupee Falls 3 Paise Against Us Dollar Post Rbi Policy Meet

The rupee depreciated 3 paise against the US dollar on Tuesday after the Reserve Bank of India announced the policy rates keeping the key rates unchanged.

Rupee fell to 66.87 against the US dollar. It opened at 66.78. RBI kept the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility unchanged at 6.5 per cent.

"Re should be rangebound at the current level as the policy is supportive of the currency and will not depreciate," said NS Venkatesh head of treasury IDBI BankBSE -0.36 %. "At system level there will be no impact of FCNRB. Once the event is over, we will have to reassess the situation."

Dealers expect rupee to remain at 66.65-67.10 levels against the US Dollar till mid September.

"The Reserve Bank will continue with both domestic liquidity operations and foreign exchange interventions that should also enable management of the FCNR(B) redemptions without market disruptions," said RBI in the policy statement. "With a view to further front-loading the provision of liquidity, it has been decided to conduct an open market purchase auction on August 11, 2016."

Forex dealers said strength in the dollar against some other currencies overseas and a weak trend in the domestic equity market in early trade also weighed on the rupee.

The local currency has closed lower at 66.84 on fresh dollar demand form banks and importers on the back of strong dollar in overseas markets on Monday.

The benchmark BSE Sensex was trading 19.34 points, or 0.07 per cent, down at 28,127.37 post policy statement.

 

Sources :economictimes.indiatimes.com

M&M Launches Unpolished Pulses To Grab Share Of Rs 350 Crore Pie In Mumbai

The estimated Rs 1.5 lakh crore branded pulses market in the country has attracted yet another corporate, thanks to the hefty margins and potential for growth it commands. Mahindra Agri Solutions (MASL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of M&M, which launched tur dal under NuPro brand a year ago in Mumbai, has launched chana, moong, masoor and urad dals across 4000 outlets in the city.

NuPro pulses are targeted at the upper middles class, educated woman of the city. Urad dal has been priced at Rs 130 per half a kilo, moong dal (Rs 185 a kilo), Masoor Dal (Rs 160/kg) and chana dal (Rs 175 a kilo). The premiums that the unpolished dals command range from 50-100 per cent to the normal variety of dals, basis consumer affairs ministry data on July 5.

Justifying the prices, Sharma said, "These are sundried, unpolished variety of pulses which take approximately half the time to cook. Besides we vouchsafe for the purity and high quality assurance, which is why NuPro had a healthy 30 per cent repeat purchase."

The two larger rivals of MASL are Tata Sampann and Satyam, which have 20 per cent and 8-9 per cent market share in Mumbai respectively, said Sharma.

The company which had sales of Rs 2.5 crore in pulses in FY16 targets to generate revenue of Rs 20 crore from pulses in the current fiscal in Mumbai. It's grander aims include expanding to the country's top 10 cities over the years and commanding a 5 per cent market share of the overall Rs 1.5 lakh cr branded market.

MASL also sells edible oils like soya and mustard under the NuPro brand in West Bengal, and fruits and vegetables under the Saboro, Spanish for tasty, brand. The revenues of MASL grew 12 times to Rs 900 crore in the past five years through fiscal year 2015-16.

Around 90-95 per cent of the procurement of pulses is from the domestic market, mainly APMC market yards and appx 10 per cent from Myanmar, Tanzania and Canada. The company has reached out to 2500 farmers in Maharashtra in areas like Latur and Amravati and plans to swathe 10,000 farmers in the near future.

In fact, claims Sharma, the productivity of pulses, which stands at an average 650 kg/hectare in India, rose to 800-850 kilo/ha, thanks to advisory and high quality input sales by MASL to farmers inn Latur. In comparison average yield in China is 1900 kg/ha for pulses, Sharma added.

Ashok Gulati, Infosys chair professor for agri at ICRIER, also said that corporates tend to charge higher premiums because of "quality assurance" and brand equity "which isn't built out of thin air." "If you knew the kind of oils being used by some to polish dals in the unorganized sector, you'd stop eating them," he said. "The bigwigs (corporates) can't afford to erode their brand equity by engaging in malpractice so you as a customer can be sure of quality even if you're paying a higher price."

The size of the branded pulses market is a tad less than 1 per cent of the overall size of the pulses market countrywide at Rs 156 lakh crore, which opens the potential for tremendous growth of the organized sector, Sharma add

 

Sources :economictimes.indiatimes.com

Edible Oil Refiners Seek Duty Cut On Crude Palm Oil Imports

 Indian refiners of edible oil have sought a cut in the import duty on crude palm oil, which they said will offer the local industry a level playing field at a time when imports of refined products are growing at a quick pace.

Their lobby group, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India, has written to the Prime Minister, requesting to cut the duty on their key raw material to 5% from the current 12.5%. It has also sought retaining the current 20% duty on refined palm oil imports.

Palm oil exporting countries levy a 12% duty on crude shipments and 5% on refined oil to protect their domestic industry. When the local import duty is added to this, say Indian refiners, the cost becomes heavy for them.

"It (cutting duty on crude imports) will not affect the government's agenda of checking inflation as the prices of edible oil will not be impacted," said BV Mehta, the association's executive-director.

Currently, edible oil prices are at last year's levels, Mehta said. He sees the prices following a usual patterns, with a marginal increase likely towards the upcoming festival season.

The local industry is worried about increasing imports of refined palm oil in India. The share of imported refined oil has now reached 32% of the total import of palm oil, Mehta said, calling it the "highest percentage" in recent years. This trend is expected to gain momentum due to forthcoming festival season, Mehta said.

 The share of refined palm oil in total imports was 18% in fiscal 2014 and 20% in the year before that.

"The refineries importing crude palm oil are barely managing to recover variable cost. The entire fixed cost, interest on capital expenditure, depreciation and profit are left uncovered," Mehta said. "In such circumstances, no refinery can sustain or survive."

Refiners are on the edge as the landed cost of crude and refined oil is almost at par, a refiner said. "Cheap refined oil imports will push most refiners into the red."

The industry is also looking at greater volumes of byproducts in case the import of crude palm oil is increased. Byproducts like palm stearin and palm fatty acid distillate are key raw material for the chemical and soap industry. Some of the byproducts are used for the manufacture of vanaspati, bakery shortenings and margarine.

"In the last budget, the import duty on palm stearin and palm fatty acid distillate was reduced to nil," said an industry representative. "While the import duty on these byproducts was made nil, the duty differential between crude and refined oil was retained at 7.5%, thereby making the refining route of crude more expensive than direct import of refined palm oil."

 

Sources :economictimes.indiatimes.com

India Slaps Anti-Dumping Duty On Steel Products From 6 Nations

An anti-dumping duty of USD 474-557 per tonne was imposed on 'hot-rolled flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel' import from China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia, the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance said in a notification.

The duty would be in force for six months till February 7, 2017.

The anti-dumping duty was imposed on recommendation of the Directorate General of Anti Dumping (DGAD).

An anti-dumping duty of USD 474 per tonne was imposed on import of hot-rolled flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel of a width up to 2100 mm and thickness up to 25 mm from Korea and Japan.

Korean firms attracting the anti-dumping duty are Hyundai Steel Company and POSCO. Three Japanese companies JFE Steel Corp, Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp are also featuring in the list.

A similar anti-dumping duty was slapped on import of similar products from China, the exporter company being Angang Steel Company Ltd and Zhangjiagang. Imports of the same from Indonesia, Russia and Brazil too attracted USD 474 per tonne duty.

Hot rolled flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel not in coils (commonly known as sheets and plates) of a width up to 4950 mm and thickness upto 150 mm imported from Korea, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia would attract USD 557 per ton anti-dumping duty.

DGAD "has come to the provisional conclusion that the subject goods have been exported to India from the subject countries below normal value (and) the domestic industry has suffered material injury on account of subject imports from the subject countries," the notification said.

Also, DGAD felt "the injury has been caused by the dumped imports of the subject goods from the subject countries".

 

Sources :economictimes.indiatimes.com

India Exported Meat Worth $568 Million In April-May

 India exported meat and meat products worth $568 million during April-May of this fiscal, Parliament was informed today.

The main export destinations include Vietnam, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

India mainly exports processed meat and meat of buffalo, sheep and goat.

In quantity terms, the overseas shipments stood at 1,92,748 tonnes in the first two months of this fiscal, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

She also said "representations are being received from time to time from some religious/social organisations demanding ban on export of meat and its products".

At present, there is no proposal to lift the ban on export of beef, she added.


Replying to a separate question, she said during April-May of 2016-17, services exports from India stood at $26.37 billion. It was $154.31 billion in 2015-16.

The minister said initiatives announced by the government like Services Exports from India Scheme are expected to enhance the exports.

 

Sources :economictimes.indiatimes.com