The UK has overtaken India to claim the fourth spot among top growth destinations, while the US extended its lead over China as the top market where CEOs are looking for growth, a survey showed. The PwC’s annual CEO survey said that post-Brexit, 11% of the 5,000 surveyed saw the UK as a better growt global economic growth will improve in 2021, the survey showed. “While fears over another pandemic is the top most threat for business leaders across the globe, majority of India CEOs feel that the global economic growth over the next 12 months will improve, reiterating the optimism we’ve heard from our clients in recent times. As companies expand their use of external partnerships to enable digital solutions and layer them onto legacy IT structures, the complexity created tends to generate ever-greater cyber risk which is an area that Indian business leaders need to tackle in the months to come,” said PwC India chairman Sanjeev Krishan.
India to appeal against Cairn’s arbitral award
India is in the process of filing an appeal against an arbitration panel asking it to return $1.2 billion to British oil firm Cairn Energy, sources said. If enforcement proceedings are initiated, India is confident to address them and will strongly defend its interests, the sources said, adding it is open to a constructive settlement of tax disputes within the existing legal framework. India is in the process of filing an appeal in the Cairn’s arbitration award case, they said, adding in this case, it was well within India’s sovereign powers to redress the situation of double non-taxation and tax abuse. Cairn CEO Simon Thomson had last month met the then finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey to discuss the arbitration award. The sources said Cairn is yet to respond based on the discussions.
PwC India to pay bonus to all employees
PwC India has announced a special one-time bonus for its 15,000 employees as a token of appreciation of their work during the pandemic. PwC India will be providing a bonus equivalent to 2 weeks’ pay that will be included in the March salary. This payout will be independent of the firm’s usual appraisal and increment cycle, which is set to follow previous timelines. “The past year has been one of the most challenging and disruptive years for business, not only for us but also our clients. It called for an organisational and workplace overhaul that none of us anticipated. Responding to the crisis with extreme agility and ensuring business continuity for all was paramount and we are very proud of and humbled by the way all our people got together and ensured that we and our clients not only navigate the crisis well, but also emerge stronger from it. It is because of their efforts that even in such an extremely difficult year, we are on course to meet our goals and are optimistic about the year ahead,” said Sanjeev Krishan, chairman of PwC India.
India beats Russia to no.4 spot on forex kitty rankings
India overtook Russia to become the nation with the fourth-largest foreign exchange reserve despite a drop in its international investments in dollar terms. While India’s forex holdings fell by $4.3 billion to $580.3 billion as of March 5, Russia’s drop was even sharper, resulting in its numbers coming down to $580.1 billion according to data from Bloomberg. According to data released by the RBI, after rising by $689 million during the last week of February to a record $584.5 billion, the central bank’s foreign holdings fell in the first week of March. The forex reserve rises when the RBI buys dollars to prevent a sharp appreciation of the domestic currency. The rupee had come under pressure on February 26 following a surge in government bond yields worldwide, closing 104 paise lower. When the currency comes under pressure, the RBI ends up selling its forex reserve to defend the rupee.
