Economy

Former Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel has criticized the Modi government at the Center for the relaxation of the rules of bankrupt law during the release of his new book 'Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver'.

Urjit Patel has said that the central government has relaxed the rules of insolvency and bankruptcy law and has also reduced the powers of the central bank, which negatively impacted the efforts made since 2014 to solve the NPA problem.

Urjit Patel, who held the post of RBI governor from September 2016 to December 2018, said that the RBI wanted the Bankruptcy Act to be strengthened so that companies in the future who are in the dilemma of default will get a lesson.

In February 2018, a circular was issued from RBI. It said that any creditor who is not paying the amount should be included in the defaulters' list. Apart from this, it was also stated in the circular that the promoters of the company that will default cannot buyback the stake in the company during the insolvency auction. The government had a different opinion on this. The government did not agree.

He told that till the arrival of the circular, he and the government had the same opinion, he used to have talks with the finance minister but after the circular came, his and the government's opinion was split. He said that the government wanted the bank to withdraw its circular but the bank refused to do so.

Malaysia's palm oil business was affected for a few months due to stress from India, but now the corona epidemic has reduced palm crop yield by 25%. This decline will further increase in the coming weeks.

This is happening due to lack of labor. The Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) said on Monday that the government's decision has had a profound impact on palm oil production, preventing the reinstatement of new foreign workers.

The government has halted the resumption of new foreign workers until the month of December due to Corona. Experts say that this decision of the government may ruin Malaysia's palm oil industry.

Najeeb Wahab, CEO of MPOA, said in a conference, "Before Kovid 19, we had about 36 thousand less workers. Our production has fallen from 10% to 25%.

Malaysia is the second largest palm oil producing country in the world. But Malaysia's industry depends on the workers of Indonesia and Bangladesh. Malaysia palm crop plantations are 84% workers from Bangladesh and Indonesia. Thousands of workers have gone back and new jobs have been closed in their place.

Due to labor shortage, palm fruit may be delayed in harvesting and this will directly affect oil production. Palm oil production is rampant in September and the entire industry is struggling with labor shortage.

Najib said that plantation companies are actively recruiting local people to follow the policy of the government, but the local people do not want to engage in this work due to the mess.

In such a situation, it is not easy to bridge the labor shortage. Najib said that if the needs of the local people are not met, then the government needs help.

Deputy Plantation Industries and Products Minister Willie Mongin has said that the ministry is working to address the problem.

He said that Malaysia is preparing to complain to the World Trade Organization because the European Union has banned the use of palm oil as biofuel.

The economy of countries around the world has been affected by the corona virus epidemic. Indonesia has decided to increase the tax exemption for businesses to limit the impact of the epidemic on its economy.

Indonesia's tax office said on Saturday that tax relief was ending in September, which has been extended to December. In this, tax breaks will be provided to manufacturing sector and medium-small-scale industries.

In addition, corporate tax installments will also be exempt. Indonesia's government has given a $ 50 billion package to deal with the Corona epidemic. Indonesia's budget deficit for the year 2020 is expected to increase three times more than anticipated due to the relief package and declining revenue.

It can reach 6.34 percent of Indonesia's GDP. Indonesia's Finance Minister Srimulayani Indravati had earlier said that tax breaks have been provided to companies to avoid bankruptcy.

According to the news agency AFP, Singapore has gone into recession in the second quarter of the year as the business-based Singapore economy has seen a decline of 41.2 per cent qoq.

According to the Commerce Ministry, Singapore's economy declined at a rate of 12.6% between April and June as compared to last year as stricter sanctions were imposed to prevent corona virus infection.

Thus, this is the second week of the decline in the economy when Singapore, one of the world's most open economies, has seen a decline.

This is the first time in the last ten years when Singapore has gone into recession.

Singapore's Ministry of Commerce said in its statement that "the huge decline in GDP in the second quarter is due to the restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of the corona virus between April 7 and June 1." Under these restrictions, all non-essential services and most of all places of work were closed.''

It has also been said in the government statement that the reduction in external demand due to the worldwide economic decline is also responsible for this recession.

Singapore, seen as a barometer of the health of global trade, is highly vulnerable to external shocks. In such a situation, the frightening statistics of Singapore are also giving dangerous signals for the global economy.

On Monday, oil prices declined in Asian markets at the start of trade. This happened at a time when traders were waiting for the results of the OPEC meeting in which the suggestion of increasing oil supply is expected. The price of crude oil has seen an uptick in the past due to a decrease in oil supply.

The price of Brent crude oil fell by 27 cents at 6:44 am on Monday morning, after which it was priced at US $ 42.97 per barrel. At the same time, West Texas Intermediate crude oil lost 28 cents to reach the level of US $ 40.27 per barrel.

Many oil prices have not seen a huge change in the past week. This occurred when movement restrictions were imposed in the US provinces following the rise of corona virus cases. These restrictions may reduce oil consumption in the world's largest oil consuming country.

But on Friday, oil prices saw a rise of two per cent when the International Energy Agency raised its estimate of oil demand in the year 2020 to demand four lakh barrels of oil per day.

Oil prices were at their decades-old level in April. But OPEC and its partners, including Russia, called OPEC Plus, decided to reduce oil supplies by 9.7 million barrels per day for three months from May.

OPEC's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee will decide on a reduction on the following days on the following Tuesday and Wednesday.

OPEC and Russia may increase oil supply after global oil demand and prices improve.

According to Stephen Innes, strategist for global markets at Exicorp, according to the OPEC Plus agreement, oil production and US production shortfall from next month could put pressure on the supply equation. ''

Libya has exported its crude oil for the first time in six months on Friday, following a ban imposed by the eastern powers. But after this, oil exports have been banned once again on Sunday.

Libya's National Oil Corporation has accused the United Arab Emirates of once again imposing a ban on oil exports by directing the eastern forces of the Libyan civil war.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das has said that the corona virus is the biggest economic and health crisis in the last 100 years which will have an unprecedented negative impact on production, employment and health of people.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said this during the SBI Banking and Economic Conclave.

He has said that the crisis has affected the current global system, the global supply mechanism, the flow of labor and capital, and that this epidemic will probably be the greatest test for the strength and ability of our economic and financial infrastructure to sustain.

The International Air Transport Association, representing 290 airlines, estimates that airlines around the world will lose $ 84 billion. With this, the jobs of one million people will end.

This week, United Airlines, one of the three largest carriers in the United States, has warned its employees that it may cut 36,000 jobs due to a severe reduction in air travel.

Helen Baker, managing director and senior research analyst at investment firm Cowen, says that the epidemic could result in American airlines leaving two million of their 7.5 million employees.

The consortium of US airlines is pressuring the Trump government to increase the bailout package of $ 25 billion.

To get the help released by the government, airlines have to hire people till the next September.

But IATA says that doing so will bring broad benefits.

An IATA spokesperson said that the number of jobs that are going on in the aviation sector shows how serious the financial crisis is facing the aviation sector and all those who depend on air connectivity.

Along with this, it has been said that the restrictions imposed by the government to protect people from the corona virus are fully understood, but in doing so the economic and social consequences of these steps should be taken into consideration.

Emirates Airlines President Sir Tim Clarke has said that Emirates Airlines is going to cut at least 9000 jobs in the coming days due to the Corona virus crisis.

This is the first time that the world's largest international airline has told how many people are going to be fired.

Before this crisis came to the fore, 60 thousand people worked at Emirates Airlines.

Sir Tim Clarke has said that airlines have already laid off ten percent of their employees. But we may have to lay off some more of our employees, perhaps 15 percent of the total.

The global aviation industry has been severely affected by the Corona virus as work has been stalled for the past several months.

In an interview with the BBC, Sir Tim Clarke said that his airlines were not affected as badly as other airlines.

Tim Clarke said that this year was going to be one of the best years for Emirates, but Emirates' current situation shows that Emirates has seen a huge drop in earnings.

Employees of Emirates Company are also worried about the coming days due to dwindling jobs in the aviation sector.

According to the staff, the lack of transparency and communication from the airlines has led to disappointment.

This week, 700 out of 4500 pilots of airlines have been given redundancy notices. This means that after the Corona virus crisis, at least 12 people have been told that they are leaving their jobs.

Due to this crisis the jobs of those who fly Airbus planes are going away.

It does not seem to have much effect when the Boeing aircraft flown.

Emirates uses the Superjumbo Airbus A380 for its airlines that can carry up to 500 people at a time.

At the same time, fewer people travel on Boeing 777 aircraft and they are easy to fill even during this, global crisis when international flights are running low.

With this, thousands of cabin crew employees have also been informed that the company does not need them at the moment.

Iran's currency rial continues to fall drastically. According to Bonbast.com, the price of one dollar on Monday was 2,15,000 rials. This riyal is almost five times the official rate of 42,000 rial.

According to the news agency Reuters, the central bank had to take steps due to the continuing decline in the last few weeks. The bank put millions of dollars into the market to bring some stability. Central Bank Governor Abdulnansir Hematti has described the move as wise and in the right direction.

He informed that the bank had sufficient reserves of foreign exchange without giving any information. According to economists, the use of those reserves has become necessary due to the impact on the current account and fiscal deficit during the economic crisis caused by the corona virus.

According to Gabris Iradian, chief economic adviser to the Middle East and North Africa at the Institute of International Finance, "They have limited foreign exchange reserves to invest in the market and are now isolated due to isolation from the international community in addition to US sanctions." It will not be possible to prevent any further decline. ''

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal with 6 countries, including the US, but in the year 2018, the US canceled the deal and banned Iran again. Due to this, the value of the currency of Iran was reduced by about 70 percent.

The government tried to fix several exchange rates to reduce the financial burden of importers. But the Rial's decline continued even after the Central Bank's intervention in the free market.

The United Nations watchdog has asked Iran to allow it to visit two suspected old nuclear facilities. In addition, the recent decline has been recorded due to the negativity created by the macroeconomic decline due to Corona Mahamari. But these too can lead to major changes.

Can boycott damage Facebook? The answer is 'yes'.

The 'Abolitionist Movement', which took place in the 18th century, prevented the British people from buying enslaved goods.

This movement had a big impact. Nearly three lakh people stopped buying sugar, which increased the pressure to abolish slavery.

'Stop Hate for Profit' is the latest campaign in which 'boycott' is being used as a political weapon. The campaign claims that Facebook does not do enough to remove hateful and racist content on its platform.

The 'Stop Hate for Profit' campaign has persuaded many large companies to remove their advertisements from Facebook and some other social media platforms.

After Coca-Cola, Unilever and Starbucks, now well-known companies such as Ford, Adidas and HP have also joined their advertisers.

Microsoft also stopped advertising on Facebook and Instagram in May, according to news website 'Axius'. Microsoft has stopped advertising on Facebook due to unknown 'inappropriate content'.

Meanwhile, other online platforms such as Reddit and Twitch have also taken anti-hate steps on their own and have increased the pressure on Facebook.

So can such a boycott cause huge damage to Facebook?

The short answer to this question is yes. Because a large part of Facebook's revenue comes from advertisements.

David Cumming of Aviva Investors told the BBC that Facebook had lost people's trust and that users found a lack of moral values ​​in Facebook's attitude. Davim Cumming believes that these assumptions can hurt Facebook's business badly.

On Friday, the share price of Facebook was down by eight percent. As a result, the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost at least five and a half trillion rupees.

But can the damage be bigger? Could this threaten the existence of Facebook in the coming days? There are still clear answers to these questions.

The first thing is that Facebook is not the first social media company to face boycott.

In the year 2017, many big brands announced that they will not advertise on YouTube. This happened because an ad for a particular brand was shown after a racist and homophobic (hateful against homosexuality) video.

The boycott of this brand is now almost forgotten. YouTube changed its advertising policies and now YouTube's parent company Google is also doing fine in this regard.

This boycott may not have caused much damage to Facebook. There are other reasons for this.

The first thing is that many companies have talked about boycotting Facebook only for the month of July. Secondly, a large part of Facebook's revenue also comes from advertising by small and medium companies.

According to a CNN report, Facebook earned nearly three trillion rupees from the top 100 brands spent last year and it was just six per cent of the total advertising revenue.

Matt Morrison, head of the advertising agency Digital Whiskey, told the BBC that it is not possible for many small companies to 'not advertise'.

Says Morrison, "For companies that cannot afford to pay huge amounts of money for advertising on television, Facebook is a necessary medium. Business can succeed only when companies reach their potential customers. So they will continue to advertise. ''

Furthermore, Facebook's structure is such that it gives Mark Zuckerberg the power to make any kind of changes. If they want to change a policy, they can change it. For this, only their views need to be changed. If Zuckerberg does not want to take action, he will not.

However, in the last few days, Mark Zuckerberg has indicated changes. Facebook announced on Friday that it would begin tagging hate comments.

On the other hand, other companies are taking action on their own.

On Monday, social news website Reddit announced that it was banning a group called 'The Donald Trump Forum'. Members of this group are accused of making hate and threatening comments. The group was not directly associated with President Trump, but its members shared their supporting mimes.

In addition, Amazon-owned video streaming platform Twitch has also temporarily banned an account run by 'Trump Campaign'. Twitch has said that two of the videos from President Trump's rallies were said to promote hatred.

One of these videos was in the year 2015 (before Trump was elected president). In this video, Trump said that Mexico is sending rapists to the United States.

Twitch said in his statement, "If there is any hateful feeling in any political comment or news, we do not consider it an exception. We stop it."

This year is going to be a challenge for all social media companies and Facebook is also not outside the scope of these challenges. However, companies always take decisions keeping their balance sheet in mind. So if this boycott prolongs and more companies join, then this year will change a lot for Facebook.