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At last US Federal Reserve hiked the rate of interest by 25 basis points after almost a decade and Indian markets responded well to this news, clearly depicting robust situation of the Indian economy. Benchmark BSE Sensex zoomed by 131 points in the morning trade of December 17, soon after the announcement and rupee also opened 13 paisa higher against the USD at Rs 66.60. Reacting to this rate hike, Finance Ministry states that this marks the beginning of gradual withdrawal of the accommodative monetary policy stand adopted since 2006 and going forward, the actions of the US Federal Reserve are expected to be cautious and data driven.

Ministry marked; “Rupee is stable in the 66-67/$ range and this underlines the strong macroeconomic fundamentals of the Indian Economy and the efforts we have made to achieve macro stability over the last one and half years.”  Considering this India is much better placed today in terms of real GDP growth, lower inflation, lower current account deficit and on-going fiscal consolidation. “We hope to sustain economic reforms going forward into the future,” ministry added in an official communication.

Cochin Shipyard Becomes First Licensed Shipyard To Make LNG Ships 

Cochin Shipyard became first Indian shipyard to obtain this coveted license to build LNG ships for any client from GTT. Company has successfully completed a Mark-III Flex Mock-Up, which has been certified by GTT (Gaztransport et Technigaz), France, thereby completing all requirements to be licensed by GTT to build LNG ships using their patented membrane containment system known as the Mark-III Technology. The CEO of GTT France, Philippe Berterottiere, awarded the licence to K Subramaniam , CMD, Cochin Shipyard at New Delhi. The Minister of Shipping &Road Transport, Nitin Gadkari and Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan were also present on the occasion. 

On the occasion, Gadkari said that this achievement on the part of CSL is a major step towards the ‘Make in India’ initiative and will take ship building in India to a new height. Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan marked that as per recent projections, LNG procurement in India is set to grow by 4 percent. There is a need to draw up a blue print for the transport of this LNG to the hinterland. Minister announced that the Ministry of Petroleum will initiate a workshop with the Shipping Ministry to work out future LNG requirement. 

Power shortage is at all time low: Power Minister

Government has claimed that energy availability to individual household has increased manifold that resulted in covering the shortage of energy during last 2 year.  As per data received by ministry of power, energy shortage has reduced from 8.5% in 2011-12 to 2.3% in the current year (upto November, 2015), which is the lowest ever. Also, peak shortage has reduced from 10.6% in 2011-12 to 3.2% during the current year (upto November, 2015). 

In a reply in Rajya Sabha, Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy, stated that to meet the projected demand of power as per 18th EPS, generation capacity addition of 88,537 MW has been planned during 12th Five Year Plan from conventional sources and 30000 MW is planned from Renewable sources. As against this, about 69,960 MW from conventional sources and about 13,204 MW from renewable sources have been achieved. Minister informed that as far as giving power to 18,452 un-electrified villages in the country, all these un-electrified villages would be electrified within the next 1000 days by Ministry with help of States and local bodies.
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Anil Ambani-led telecom company Reliance Communication is in talks with shareholders of telecom operator Aircel for a potential merger of the wireless or mobile businesses of the two companies. In a filing to stock exchanges it said “it has entered into a 90-day exclusivity period with Maxis Communications Berhad (MCB) and Sindya Securities and Investments, the shareholders of Aircel Limited, to consider the potential combination of the Indian wireless businesses of RCom and Aircel." The idea is to mutually derive expected substantial benefits of in-country consolidation, including operating expenditure (opex) and capital expenditure (capex) synergies and revenue enhancement. The potential combination will exclude RCom's towers and optical fibre infrastructure, for which RCom is proceeding with an asset sale, as announced on December 4, 2015. RCom is already in the process of buying Indian mobile telephony business of Sistema Shyam Teleservices under MTS brand. The combination of RCom, Aircel, MTS wireless businesses will hold 19.3 per cent of the total spectrum allocated to the industry - the highest in the country by an entity.

Mumbai based realty developer HDIL has sold 850,000 square feet of development rights in Kurla to a company belonging to the Mumbai-based Wadhawan Group for Rs 649 crore. In a statement to exchanges, HDIL said “it has registered a Development Agreement with DK Realty to sell the development rights, in respect of the piece and parcel of land situated at Kurla, Mumbai, for a consideration of Rs 649.51 crore.” HDIL and the Wadhawan Group are headed by cousins Sarang Wadhawan and Kapil Wadhawan, respectively, who divided their business in 2009. The two sides signed the deal almost six years after a business restructuring announced by them.

The development rights sold to Wadhawan are for a part of the 53-acre plot of land HDIL bought from Premier Automobiles for Rs 1,900 crore. Of this, 38 acres were meant for rehabilitating families dwelling on airport land as part of the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) project and the rest was for free sale. The deal augurs well for HDIL given that it has Rs 3,200 crore debt on its books and the money will go towards debt repayment and working capital

Public sector lender, Canara Bank has plans to raise Rs 2,400 crore from bonds to fund business growth. It has received 'IND AAA' rating with stable outlook to the proposed Tier II bond issuance programme. The board has permitted the bank to raise additional capital of Rs 2,400 crore through issue of Basel-III compliant Tier II Bonds by way of private placement. The fund raised is intended to support the asset growth during 2015-16 and also to maintain healthy level of Capital to Risk Weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR). The bank’s CRAR at the end of September 2015 stood at 11.04 per cent.