As mentioned last month India continues to be negatively impacted by the ongoing war with lower economic forecasts as a fallout of the ongoing conflict. There have been increasing surge of Covid 19 new cases in certain parts of the country, which is worrying local governments and resulted in reinstating of restrictions in these areas. India signed a trade agreement with a developed country after 10 years. With increasing cyber security incidents globally, new guidelines on reporting of such incidents.
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IMF Economic Forecast – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently projected a downgrade in economic growth rate in 2022 for India, which is a net oil importer, reflecting in part weaker domestic demand—as higher oil prices are expected to weigh on private consumption and investment—and a drag from lower net exports. In its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report titled ‘War Sets Back the Global Recovery’, it was mentioned that the war in Ukraine has triggered a costly humanitarian crisis that demands a peaceful resolution. At the same time, economic damage from the conflict will contribute to a significant slowdown in global growth in 2022 and add to inflation. Fuel and food prices have increased rapidly, hitting vulnerable populations in low-income countries hardest. Global growth is projected to slow from an estimated 6.1 percent in 2021 to 3.6 percent in 2022 and 2023. This is 0.8 and 0.2 percentage points lower for 2022 and 2023 than projected in January. The report mentioned that the Indian economy is expected to grow by 8.2 per cent in 2022, which is lower by 0.8 percentage mentioned in its January 2022 WEO, as reported by Asia Law Portal. The projections for 2023 is 6.9% which is also a decline of 0.2 percentage from the January WEO.
Asian Development Bank – India’s economy will grow 7.5% in fiscal year (FY) 2022 and 8% in FY2023, supported by increased public investment in infrastructure and a pickup in private investment, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasts. The outlook assumes sustained progress in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccinations and that any new variants of the virus are of limited severity. It also factors in the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—primarily higher global oil and commodity prices that will contribute to rising inflation and a widening of the current account deficit. The forecast was issued today as part of the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2022, the latest edition of ADB’s flagship economic publication. FY2022 refers to the 12 months ending 31 March 2023. “India is on the path to a sustained economic recovery, thanks to the vigorous countrywide drive to deliver safe and wide-reaching COVID-19 vaccinations, which helped reduce the severity of the third pandemic wave with minimal disruptions to mobility and economic activity,” said ADB Country Director for India Takeo Konishi. “The Government of India’s policy to improve logistics infrastructure, incentives to facilitate industrial production, and measures to improve farmers’ income will support the country’s accelerated recovery.” Risks to the outlook include uncertain global economic conditions, potential new surges in COVID-19 cases, and sharp rises in commodity prices.
India-Australia Trade Pact – The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) was signed recently. The India-Australia ECTA is the first trade agreement of India with a developed country after more than a decade. The Agreement encompasses cooperation across the entire gamut of bilateral economic and commercial relations between the two friendly countries, and covers areas like Trade in Goods, Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Customs Procedures, Pharmaceutical products, and Cooperation in other Areas. Eight subject specific side letters covering various aspects of bilateral economic cooperation were also concluded as part of the Agreement. The negotiations for India-Australia ECTA were formally re-launched on 30 September 2021 and concluded on a fast-track basis by the end of March 2022. Australia is the 17th largest trading partner of India and India is Australia’s 9th largest trading partner. India-Australia bilateral trade for both merchandise and services is valued at US$ 27.5 billion in 2021. India’s merchandise exports to Australia grew 135% between 2019 and 2021. India’s exports consist primarily of a broad-based basket largely of finished products and were US$ 6.9 billion in 2021. India’s merchandise imports from Australia were US$ 15.1 billion in 2021, consisting largely of raw materials, minerals and intermediate goods.
New Cyber Security Guidelines – During the course of handling cyber incidents and interactions with the constituency, CERT-In has identified certain gaps causing hindrance in incident analysis. To address the identified gaps and issues so as to facilitate incident response measures, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued directions relating to information security practices, procedure, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents under the provisions of sub-section (6) of section 70B of the Information Technology Act, 2000. will become effective after 60 days. All companies and enterprises will mandatorily have to report all cyber incidents to the CERT-In. This is in order to coordinate response activities as well as emergency measures with respect to cyber security incidents, CERT-In said in a statement. CERT-In, operational since January 2004, is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur.
