New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday outlined the thrust of the BJP-led government’s economic policy.

Speaking in Rajya Sabha during the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, the PM said, “There will be a rapid transformation in public transportation in the country and the footprints of technology will be seen in many sectors.”

When India becomes the third largest economy, it will have a positive impact not only domestically but also at the global level, the Prime Minister pointed out.

PM Modi said, “Our economy has moved from the 10th position in the world to the fifth spot and we have now got the mandate to make India the third largest economy.”

“The opportunity given to us for the third time by the people of the country is to strengthen the determination to realise the goal of ‘Viksit Bharat’ and Atmanirbhar Bharat,” the Prime Minister added.

He said the return of his government for the third term would strengthen the journey towards fulfilling this objective.

Listing the achievements of the government, the Prime Minister said only 3 crore farmers were beneficiaries of UPA’s loan waiver, but the NDA’s PM-Kisan scheme has benefited over 10 crore farmers.

He said the government has strengthened the agriculture sector with micro planning ranging from farm to market.

The people of the country have given their support to the work done by BJP-led NDA govt in the last 10 years, he added.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Homegrown micro-blogging platform Koo on Wednesday announced to discontinue its services to the public after partnership talks fell through.

“We explored partnerships with multiple larger internet companies, conglomerates and media houses but these talks didn’t yield the outcome we wanted,” Koo founders Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“Most of them didn’t want to deal with user-generated content and the wild nature of a social media company. A couple of them changed priority almost close to signing,” they added.

Koo, which secured more than $60 million in funding from prominent investors like Tiger Global and Accel, faced significant challenges in expanding its user base and generating revenue over the past year.

In February, media firm Dailyhunt was in the advanced stages of talks to acquire Koo, TechCrunch reported.

Further in the post, the founders mentioned that “at our peak, we were about 2.1 million daily active users and around 10 million monthly active users, over 9000 VIPs, that included some of the most eminent personalities from various fields”.

“We were just months away from beating Twitter (now X) in India in 2022 and could have doubled down on that short-term goal with capital behind us,” they added.

The founders also mentioned that the mood of the market and the funding winter “got the better of us”.

–IANS

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Mumbai, July 3 (IANS) Investors are bullish on India as the economic growth rate is the fastest in the world. Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) funds invested $6.9 billion in May 2024 which is 54 per cent more on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, according to the EY-IVCA report.

The report said that investment in real estate and infrastructure by PE/VC has increased by 67 per cent year-on-year to $2.5 billion in May 2024 from $1.5 billion in May 2023. This is 183 per cent more than April 2024.

The total number of deals has increased by 45 per cent year-on-year to 100 in May 2024, which was 69 in May 2023, the report stated.

Pure play PE/VC investment has increased by 47 per cent to $4.4 billion in May 2024, from $3 billion in May 2023.

The real estate sector was the top sector in May 2024 with investments of $2.5 billion. This was followed by the Financial Services sector which received an investment of $1.6 billion.

The infrastructure sector has been a favourite of PE/VC. In the last five years, 17 per cent of PE/VC investment has been in this sector. In terms of value, PE/VC has invested the most in the renewable energy sector, followed by roads and highways.

Growth investment deals by PE/VC investors have the highest deal type in May 2024. Their size was $2.5 billion, which was 36 per cent of the total investment. This was followed by buyout investment deals at $2.3 billion.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) After a steady start in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, Indian real estate saw accelerated momentum in the second quarter (Q2), registering $2.5 billion of inflows — the highest in any quarter since 2021, a new report showed on Wednesday.

According to the professional services and investment management company Colliers, the industrial & warehousing segment accounted for the highest share of 61 per cent of total investments, at $1.5 billion, led by select large deals.

The institutional investments in the industrial & warehousing segment grew manifold during Q2 2024, 11 times compared to Q2 2023 led by select large deals in the segment

“Private equity investments in Indian real estate have shown remarkable resilience and strength in the first half (H1) of the year at $3.5 billion, reflecting robust market confidence,” said Piyush Gupta, MD, Capital Markets & Investment Services at Colliers India.

“With foreign investments leading the charge at a significant 73 per cent share in H1 2024, the sustained momentum is expected to drive positive sentiment for the entire year,” he added.

The residential segment also witnessed a significant rise in quarterly inflows, 7.5 times compared to Q2 2023, capturing a 21 per cent share of total institutional inflows into Indian real estate.

As per the report, foreign investments remained robust, accounting for 81 per cent of the total inflows in Q2 2024, predominantly led by investors from the US and UAE.

During Q2, multi-city deals continued to drive the majority of the investment inflows at 72 per cent share. Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR together corresponded to about 23 per cent of the total inflows during the quarter driven by foreign investments.

Led by inflows into the office segment, Delhi-NCR witnessed about 86 per cent (year-on-year) rise in investment inflows during Q2.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Growth in India’s services sector accelerated in June on the back of robust domestic demand and a record rise in export orders, according to an HSBC survey released on Wednesday.

The strong demand also led to service providers hiring more staff with the pace of job creation touching a two-year high.

HSBC’s India Services Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by S&P Global, rose to 60.5 in June from 60.2 in May.

“Activity growth in India’s service sector accelerated in June … led by an increase in both domestic and international new orders,” said Pranjul Bhandari, HSBC’s chief India economist.

New business has been above breakeven since August 2021 and expanded at a faster pace last month. That was supported by the fastest rise in international orders since the sub-index was added to the survey nearly a decade ago.

“Overall, service providers remain confident about the year-ahead business outlook, although the level of optimism moderated sharply during the month,” Bhandari added.

Meanwhile, costs rose at the slowest pace in four months, indicating cooling inflation, and the report said that fewer than 5 per cent of firms surveyed opted to pass cost burdens to clients, resulting in only a moderate rate of inflation.

A rise in both manufacturing and services has pushed up the overall HSBC India Composite PMI to 60.9 in June.

The survey supports the positive outlook ahead as Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has projected that India’s goods and services exports are likely to increase by 3 per cent to surpass $800 billion in 2024-25.

Reserve Bank of India recently revised India’s growth forecast upward to 7.2 per cent from 7 per cent earlier and sees the Indian economy heading towards a higher growth trajectory of 8 per cent and above.

–IANS

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