Sensex ends 167 points lower, auto stocks resume slide in India

Indian markets fell on Thursday ahead of the key macro data such as IIP (index of industrial production) numbers for July and retail inflation (CPI) print for August due later in the day.

Nifty auto index declined by 1.81 per cent, led by selling in Tata Motors, TVS Motors and Maruti Suzuki scrips.

The Sensex closed 166.54 points or 0.45 per cent lower at 37,104.28 while the Nifty fell by 54.65 or 0.50 per cent at 10,981.05. The benchmark opened higher at 37,330.47, from its previous close of 37,270.82.

“Market had done well in the last one-week and bounced back from the oversold region which was heavily impacted last month by poor economic data,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.

Nair also added that markets are waiting for the next set of updated data to understand whether the worst for the economy is over or if this slowdown will continue in the short-term.

The outlook on these upcoming data is weak which is likely to be supported by more rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India in the next month’s policy meet, analysts noted.

Meanwhile the Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the soon to be issued norms on foreign exchange export credits to exporters could be pegged below 4 per cent in order to boost exports.

Addressing the Board of Trade meeting here, which included many industry association representatives, Goyal expressed concern at the fall in export credit and said he had discussed the matter with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, as per an official statement.

“I am very concerned that export credits have fallen. I can assure you, very soon, we will come out with the contours of a vibrant programme to particularly support MSMEs and will more importantly make foreign exchange export credit available at very very competitive rates − like at sub-4 per cent rates for forex credit,” he said.

“All matters are on board. We will very soon come out with very robust guidelines. The RBI has been very supportive on this. The ECGC has come out with very practical solutions which will empower banks to lend more to the exports sector.

“The ECGC policy is also being revitalised and relooked at to make it more robust, to make it more comfortale for bankers to lend more and I am quite hoepful of the expansion of export credit in the days to come”, he said.

“We are waiting for the Finance Minister to take call on some of the issues that we have discussed. RBI was also very spontaneous to support us Commerce Ministry in availability of export credit. Now, very shortly, we will be coming out with the contours of the discussions that have been finalied between RBI, Finance and Commerce Ministries,” he added.

The RBI Deputy Governor BP Kanungo was present at the meeting.

State-run ECGC Ltd (formerly Export Credit Guarantee Corporation ) provides export credit insurance support to the country’s exporters.

Goyal also said that global trade is facing many challenges.

“We are not going to be deterred by domestic issues. We have 2 per cent of global trade, have an opportunity to expand our footprint in markets and areas which are having problems among themselves. We have to encash this opportunity,” he said.

“States, ministries and industries can encash that. We have to work towards making exports feasible, viable, competitive and capture the market that rightfully belonged to India. There are several products where we have ceded space to others and we can capture those quickly and this is the time to expand scale,” he added.

He urged the states and the Centre to work together in this regard.

According to Goyal, Alfonso mangoes are very popular abroad and so are particular products from Mordabad and Bengaluru. He said: “We have 30 million Indian diaspora abroad.”

“We are working under very challenging circumstances where the global trade is full of uncertainties, trade wars, challenges. And in such challenges, we have a choice − to be despondent, global problems are overtaking our domestic capabilities, therefore, we become complecent and accept things as they are, or we decide that this is the best time and opportunity that we could ever have to expand our domestic capabilities and business and aim for bigger scale of operation,” he said.

He also asked stakeholders to work towards bringing logistics costs down to 9 per cent to make exports more competitive.

Indo-Asian News Service