Japan has concluded a deal with the United Arab Emirates to transfer nuclear power technology – its first since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Persian Gulf state on the third leg of a weeklong overseas trip.After visiting a railway that Japanese companies helped build, Abe met UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on Thursday.
Abe conveyed Japan’s plan to hold ministerial-level strategic talks on a regular basis with 6 Gulf Arab states, known as the Gulf Cooperation Council. He also called for the start of working-level discussions with the UAE toward an investment agreement. Abe said Japan can contribute to the country’s energy supply. He pledged technology in the fields of energy conservation, renewables and nuclear power.Media agencies
Abe conveyed Japan’s plan to hold ministerial-level strategic talks on a regular basis with 6 Gulf Arab states, known as the Gulf Cooperation Council. He also called for the start of working-level discussions with the UAE toward an investment agreement. Abe said Japan can contribute to the country’s energy supply. He pledged technology in the fields of energy conservation, renewables and nuclear power.Media agencies
European Central Bank has cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low to prop up the region’s sluggish economy. Board meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, agreed to lower its main refinancing rate by 0.25 percentage points to 0.5 percent. The reduction is the first since July last year.
Many European countries are in dire fiscal straits and present forecasts suggest that even Germany is facing diminishing prospects. Germany is the region’s leading economy.
ECB President Mario Draghi said at a news conference that weak economic sentiment extended into the spring of this year. Further stressed the bank’s readiness to take further steps to ease credit if needed.
Economists say the ECB’s latest move is unlikely to stimulate the European economy. They say interest rates in the zone have already been lowered to almost zero.
Economists say the ECB’s latest move is unlikely to stimulate the European economy. They say interest rates in the zone have already been lowered to almost zero.
ECB further decided to consult with other public organizations in the eurozone about possible new measures it may take. These include extending the lending of three-month, low-interest loans to financial institutions. Steps to expand loans to businesses are also being considered.
Reserve Bank has cut the key interest rate by just 0.25 pc to 7.25 pc and kept the liquidity enhancing cash reserve requirement unchanged, disappointing the industry and stock market.
The RBI in its annual monetary policy statement said there would be modest improvement in the country’s economic growth to 5.7 percent in the current fiscal, as against the decade’s low of 5 percent in 2012-13.
Justifying the limited easing, RBI Governor D Subbarao on Friday said the “monetary policy action, by itself, cannot revive growth. It needs to be supplemented by efforts towards easing the supply bottlenecks, improving governance and stepping public investment”.
The BSE benchmark Sensex dropped by half a percent in the immediate aftermath of the policy announcement.
The upside risks to inflation, which cooled to a three- year low in March, “still remain significant” in the near term on suppressed inflation on the energy front, Subbarao added.
“Overall, the balance of risks stemming from the Reserve Bank’s assessment of the growth-inflation dynamic yields little space for further policy easing,” he said.
The decision to leave the CRR unchanged seems to have been driven by an improvement in the liquidity deficit, as the banks are now drawing around Rs 84,000 crore from the overnight window compared to Rs 1.8 lakh crore late last fiscal.
RBI expects inflation to hover broadly around the 5.5 percent mark in the current fiscal and said it will deploy “all instruments at command” to bring it down to 5 percent by March next year.
Referring to the Cobrapost sting on the country’s top three private banks allegedly helping launder money, the RBI said the ongoing investigations have underlined the need for better regulatory compliance by banks.
Even though factors like lower commodity prices and narrowing fiscal deficit would help stem inflation, RBI said the “upside risks to inflation are still significant in the short term” in view of supply imbalances, correction in administrative prices of fuel and rising minimum support price for crops.
Given these factors, “monetary policy cannot afford to lower its guard against the possibility of resurgence in inflation pressures,” Subbarao said.
Describing the widening current account deficit and its financing as the biggest threat to monetary policy, RBI warned that growth would slip if governance is not improved and supply constraints are not unlocked.
The central bank expects non-food credit growth to pick up marginally to 15 percent in 2013-14 from 14 percent achieved in the previous fiscal and deposit mobilisation to be flat at 14 percent.
There were a slew of measures on the regulation of banks and non-bank entities.
RBI said its probe into the Cobrapost sting allegation have revealed the need for better adherence to regulatory compliance by banks as some aberrations have been found.
It also said that banks are not carrying out customer due diligence as per requirements while marketing and distributing third-party products and said guidelines with remedial action regarding the same will come later.
Referring to customer services, it asked banks to stop differential treatment to home-branch and non-home branch customers, apart from asking banks to price retail loans at uniform rates.
With the falling gold prices making lenders uncomfortable, it also asked banks not to lend against gold coins above 50 grams.
Following are the highlights of the RBI’s annual monetary policy 2013-14:* Key short-term lending rate (repo) cut by 0.25 pc to 7.25 pc.
* Cash reserve ratio kept unchanged at 4 per cent.
* RBI says assessment of growth-inflation dynamics limits scope for further easing of policy rate.
* FY14 GDP growth pegged at 5.7 per cent, down from govt’s estimates.
* Inflation to remain range-bound around 5.5 pc in FY14.
* CAD is the biggest risk to the economy.
* RBI proposes doubling of limits on priority sector lending to MSMEs to Rs 5 cr.
* Banks asked to stop differential treatment to home-branch and non-home branch customers.
* RBI says probe into Cobrapost’s sting operation calls for a better regulatory compliance by banks.
* Banks not carrying out customer due diligence as required while marketing and distributing third-party products.
* RBI proposes restricting gold imports only to meet genuine needs of exporters of gold jewellery.
* Banks asked to set up mechanism to monitor and review implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer.
* Mid-quarter review of policy on 17th June.
Rate cut measured response to current eco situation: Rangarajan
The Reserve Bank’s decision to cut the key interest rate by 0.25 pc to 7.25 pc is a measured response to the current economic situation, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman C Rangarajan said.
“It is a measured response to the current economic situation. WPI inflation has shown signs of decline and the retail inflation still remains at a high level, CAD is also high,” Rangarajan said in New Delhi on Friday.
The overall inflation in March fell to 5.96 percent. He added that further policy rate cut by RBI will depend on how inflation behaves.
“At this particular point, one has to be somehow cautious because there are many adverse factors operating in the system. Going ahead what RBI will do depends to a large extent on how inflation behaves,” Rangarajan said.
RBI Governor D Subbarao in the annual monetary policy review on Friday cut the key interest rate by just 0.25 percent to 7.25 percent and kept the liquidity enhancing cash reserve requirement unchanged, disappointing the industry and stock market.
The RBI said there would be modest improvement in the country’s economic growth to 5.7 percent in the current fiscal, as against the decade’s low of 5 percent in 2012-13.
However, RBI’s growth projection for the current fiscal is lower than Rangarajan headed panel’s (PMEAC) growth projection of 6.4 percent for 2013-14.
The central bank said it expects inflation to hover broadly around the 5.5 percent mark in the current fiscal and will deploy all instruments at command to bring it down to 5 percent by March next year
Federal Investigation Agency prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfizar Ali handling the 26/11 Mumbai attack case and Benazir Bhutto assassination case was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in Islamabad, police said.
Gunmen riding a motorcycle fired at the Chaudhry’s car in the busy commercial area of Karachi Company at 7.30 am.
Ali, who was driving, was hit by several bullets and lost control of the car. The vehicle hit a woman crossing the road and she too died later in hospital. His bodyguard, Frontier Corps trooper Farman Ali, was injured in the attack.
Ali was heading for an anti-terrorism court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi for a hearing of the Bhutto assassination case when he was attacked, his son Nisar told the media.
The prosecutor and his bodyguard were taken to the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.
Some doctors said Ali was killed instantly as several bullets had hit him in the face.
The gunmen escaped after the brazen shooting.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ali’s son Nisar and unnamed colleagues were quoted by TV news channels as saying that the prosecutor had been receiving threats from a banned extremist group for some time. His colleagues said he had continued pursing high-profile terrorism cases despite these threats.
The prosecutor was gunned down at a time when there have been important developments in both the Mumbai attack case and Bhutto assassination case.
On April 13, a private witness from Karachi had identified Shahid Jamil Riaz, one of the accused in the Mumbai attack case, as the person who had bought inflatable boats used by the terrorists who assaulted India’s financial hub in November 2008.
The Federal Investigation Agency had recently begun interrogating former president Pervez Musharraf over the 2007 assassination of Bhutto.
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