India up 16 places to 55th on global competitiveness index

In a big jump, India has moved up  by 16 notch to rank 55th on a global index of the world’s most competitive economies. The jump in India’s position underlines the country’s recent economic recovery, improvement in institutions’ competitiveness, macroeconomic environment and a “slight improvement” in infrastructure, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said in its latest Global Competitiveness report.

Switzerland has retained its top position as the world’s most competitive economy for seventh year in a row and is followed by Singapore, the US, Germany and the Netherlands in the top-five.

Among emerging economies, India has ended five years of decline with a 16-place jump to 55th position. Turkey (51st), Brazil (75th) which posted one of the largest falls.

WEF said that the most problematic factors for doing business in India include corruption, policy instability, inflation and access to finance.

Here’s how India ranks across a range of areas

Parameter	Ranking
Market size	3
Innovation	42
Business sophistication	52
Financial market development	53
Institutions	60
Infrastructure	81
Health and primary education	84
Higher education and training	90
Macroeconomic environment	91
Goods market efficiency	91
Labour market efficiency	103
Technological readiness	120

Cipla to acquire US generic business

Cipla has acquired two US-based generic drug companies -- InvaGen Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Exelan Pharmaceuticals Inc for a total value of $550 M.

InvaGen & Exelan Pharmaceuticals    owned by the promoter of Hyderabad-based drug maker Hetero Drugs Ltd.  InvaGen acquisition  provides Cipla with an access to large wholesalers/retailers in the US. While, the acquisition of Exelan Pharmaceuticals provides Cipla access to the government and institutional market in the US . The combined revenue  of these  two companies  were approx  $200 M in 2014.  

InvaGen Pharmaceuticals is not linked directly to the flagship companies of Hetero group, Hetero  likely to  continue to strengthen its  US  presence  by investing  in  its subsidiary firm Camber Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Time to cut Rate or not ??

The Chinese Central bank & the Government been trying hard since last  8 weeks or so to keep the Chinese stock market rout in control.  They have taken several unprecedented steps including recent move to cut its benchmark interest rates and lowering of reserve requirements for banks (25 basis points interest rate cut coupled with a 50 basis point reduction in reserve requirement)  apart from  two successive  devaluation of the yuan against the dollar.

Chinese action has  compelled  other central Banks to review  their monetary policy .The central banks of other countries, including South Korea and New Zealand, which have lowered rates in response to growth tapering off amid shrinking global demand and crashing commodity prices.

As of now  the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s)  continued to maintain  a  monetary policy stance by  adopting  inflation target and    bench marking  it  to the consumer price index.  RBI has stressed to see low inflation on a sustained basis while there is  pressure  from  the government and business community  to lower interest rates to  inject more momentum in the economy and encourage investment. 

The policy maker  argue  that the stimulus to growth has to come from other quarters and not by rate cuts only. Introducing GST, labour reform are could be  examples of such other boosts.

The inflation expectations among the public are still high — leading to a gap between what savers expect in terms of returns adjusted for inflation and the rates that corporations think they ought to be paying. 

Sometime economic sense doesn’t  align this with political sense for those who have to worry about winning elections. This is possible when economic sense permeates the public discourse, so that political leaders find the courage to argue for it, even at the expense of short-term pain.