Beijing As India eyes the world’s biggest tea market in China, an Indian firm on Friday struck a $1 million export deal with a Chinese company.

Indian company Jay Shree Tea & Industries Ltd signed the contract with Chinese company COFCO (China Tea) for export of black tea, the Indian Embassy said here.

The deal, signed at China’s International Import Expo in Shanghai, came after an Indian tea promotional event was organised by the Indian Embassy in Beijing.

China is India’s 10th largest tea export destination. Last year, India’s export of tea to China was worth $25 million.

There is a rising demand for Assam CTC (crush, tear, curl) black tea, known for its strong colour and flavour.

(IANS)

New York The US dollar rose slightly against other major currencies as investors remained cautious about the upcoming results of the US mid-term elections.

In late New York trading on Tuesday, the euro fell to $1.1412 from $1.1417 in the previous session, and the British pound increased to $1.3093 from $1.3048 in the previous session, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Australian dollar was down to $0.7215 from $0.7216.

The US dollar bought 113.39 Japanese yen, higher than 113.22 Japanese yen of the previous session. The US dollar decreased to 1.0032 Swiss francs from 1.0039 Swiss francs, and it increased to 1.3139 Canadian dollars from 1.3108 Canadian dollars.

Investors kept a close watch on whether Democrats will claw back control of the US House of Representatives and Republicans will hold on to its Senate majority. Analysts believed that a divided US Congress would undermine the dollar’s value for a short term.

The greenback has recently been boosted by Friday’s robust jobs report, which recorded a sharp rise in both employment and average earnings, as well as an unchanged unemployment rate.

Investors remained positive that the upbeat jobs data will encourage the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again in December, which in turn adds to the dollar’s value in the global market.

(IANS)

San Francisco Microsoft’s Head of digital Assistant Cortana is leaving the company by the end of the year, as Cortana has moved from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) research division into the Experiences and Devices group.

First reported by ZDNet on Tuesday, Javier Soltero, Vice President of Cortana, confirmed his departure in a tweet posted to his personal account.

“I’ve made the decision to leave Microsoft. The past 4 years have been an incredible experience. I’m humbled to have been a part of building something that 100M+ users depend on every day and grateful to have worked with some amazing people,” Soltero tweeted.

Soltero helped Microsoft improve its Outlook iOS app.

He later became the overall head of Outlook before taking on the Cortana role in March this year.

Last month, Microsoft confirmed that Cortana was one of the technologies that management was moving from AI + Research to the Experiences & Devices team, which is under Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha.

“Microsoft is in the midst of trying to reposition Cortana from a standalone digital assistant to more of an assistance aide,” the report said.

(IANS)

Keeping in tune with expectations, gold sales have notched a sharp fall of 40 per cent this year compared to 2017 Diwali owing to high prices and overall negative market sentiments, a leading retailers body said on Monday.

“Though there are crowds, people are not buying as per the expectations, but merely making token purchases of 5-10-20 gm to mark the auspicious day. Mostly gold coins/guineas are moving while small, medium or big articles of jewellery are virtually ignored,” said Mumbai Jewellers Federation President Rakesh Shetty.

However, another industry body, the All India Gem & Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC), said that contrary to expectations, gold and jewellery sales have zoomed during ‘dhanteras’ and the positive trend was expected to continue till the upcoming winter wedding season.

“The past three days have surprised even the industry. People are literally out in droves in shops and showrooms to make gold purchases. Since two months, till last Saturday, the market situation was extremely gloomy,” said GJC President Nitin Khandelwal.

However, this time the purchases – mostly in small jewelleries of 10 gm (1 tola) or multiples – is for end-user purposes and not as investments, with the prospects of gold prices shooting up with the likely increase in US dollar rates soon.

“Our expectation is that USD may touch around Rs 85 in the near future given the current international scenario. Along with that, gold itself would shoot up to Rs 45,000 per tola (10 gm). Plus, the upcoming winter marriage season is also driving up the sales,” Khandelwal told IANS.

The market sentiments are positive despite the gold rates going up from Rs 30,000/tola in ‘dhanteras’ 2017 to around Rs 31,500/tola this year, which portends good for the industry.

Adopting a cautionery stand, World Gold Council Managing Director P.R. Somasundaram said that though the feedback from the industry suggests good footfalls, “the demand could be moderate” in view of the recent sharp increase in gold prices.

“Organised players seem better places, a trend that has become evident in recent years after a spate of transparency measures. Digital wallets and online buying also seem to be growing in popularity, though they are relatively small,” Somasundaram said.

India saw a 29 per cent increase in online festive sales in September, setting a year-over-year (YoY) record, Oath, a Verizon subsidiary, announced on Monday.

At 42 per cent, electronics led as the top-selling category online, with smartphones and headphones as top buys. Popular smartphone brands in India included Redmi, MI, Samsung and MOTO.

According to the report, the online festive shoppers are predominantly male (79 per cent).

“The huge volume of data points across our brands gives us a comprehensive understanding of consumers in India and their behaviour,” Erin Chao, Head of Platforms, APAC, Oath, said in a statement.

“These deep insights in turn are helping our advertisers to make sense of audiences’ preferences and market trends at a very strategic level, to put in place data-driven marketing strategies during this crucial season,” Chao added.

Tech-savvy millennials between 25-34 tend to shop more online during festivals, said the report.

The findings were based on data points across these brands and an in-depth understanding of consumer behaviour based on content consumption by users.

In what they thought was a Diwali gift, hundreds of Punjab government employees received “double salary” for the month of October.

But their happiness was short-lived when they were told that the extra amount was credited to their bank accounts by mistake and they should not withdraw the additional money paid to them, officials said.

District treasury officer AK Maini in a notice sent to head of all the government offices said two salaries were paid by mistake and shortly one salary would be taken back.

On being contacted, Maini while confirming the development, said it has happened not only in Amritsar but throughout Punjab because of technical snag in the software of the government’s treasury department.

He said a majority of the government employees were paid double salary for the month of October.

Maini said all the government departments, including education, were told not to withdraw the second salary and within a day, one salary would be taken back by the treasury department.

He said in Amritsar district alone, around ₹40 to 50 crore excess payment had been made to employees.

 Amid firm global cues the key equity indices gained over one per cent during the afternoon trade session on Friday. The Sensex jumped over 600 points to cross the 35,000-mark and the Nifty traded above the 10,500-mark.

Healthy buying was witnessed across all the sectors on the BSE, led by banking, finance and auto counters.

However, the IT stocks traded lower owing to a weak rupee. The domestic currency traded at Rs 72.87 a US dollar from its previous close of 73.45.

The investors sentiments were boosted on the back of declining crude oil prices, as the benchmark brent crude prices eased below $74 (73.30) per barrel along with signs of easing trade tension between US and China.

At 12.12 p.m., the S&P BSE Sensex traded 595.19 points up at 35,027.16. It had opened at 34,743.95 from its previous close of 34,431.97.

The NSE Nifty50 traded at 10,561.80, up 181.35 points or 1.75 per cent. It opened at 10,462.30 from its previous close of 10,380.45.

IANS

 
Admitting that his business in India in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2018 was flat and weak currency trends are just speed bumps, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is a big believer in the country and can’t wait for the future there.

In an earnings call after announcing Apple’s Q4 results late Thursday, Cook said he has had really great productive discussions with the Indian government.

“We’ve had really great productive discussions with the Indian government, and I fully expect that at some point, they will agree to allow us to bring our stores into the country,” Cook responded to a question.

“We’ve been in discussions with them, and the discussions are going quite well,” the Apple CEO added.

Cook noted that the currency weakness has been part of our challenge in India.

“But I view these as speed bumps along a very long journey, though. And the long term I think is very, very strong there,” the Apple CEO said.

The iPhone maker is seeking tax relief and other incentives from the government to begin assembling more handsets in the country and its proposal to set up a manufacturing unit is reportedly being evaluated.

According to Cook, “there are import duties in some or most of the product categories that we’re in and in some cases, they compound.

“This is an area that we’re giving lots of feedback on. We do manufacture some of the entry iPhones in India, and that project has gone well,” Cook told analysts.

Apple is currently assembling iPhone 6S in India with its partner Wistron.

“I am a big believer in India. I am very bullish on the country and the people and our ability to do well there,” Cook added.

According to industry experts, India is the fastest-growing among the top 20 smartphone markets globally, with a large untapped user base potential in Tier 5 and 6 cities and beyond.

The current smartphone user base in India is around 450 million which is set to grow by leaps and bounds.

Cook is aware of the tremendous growth opportunity in India.

“There’s a huge number of people that will move into the middle class. The government has really focused on reform in a major way and made some very bold moves.

“I applaud them for doing that and I can’t wait for the future there,” Cook said.

IANS

 The standoff between the Centre and Reserve Bank of India continued on Friday with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg dismissing RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya’s comments about incurring the market’s wrath if the central bank’s independence was harmed.

Garg was sarcastic as he mentioned the recent macroeconomic developments — the performance of rupee, oil and stock markets — that did not reflect any “wrath”.

“Rupee trading at less than 73 to a dollar; Brent crude below $73 a barrel; markets up by over four per cent during the week and bond yields below 7.8 per cent. Wrath of the markets,” he tweeted.

Garg’s remarks came after Acharya, during a lecture last week, made out a strong case for the central bank’s autonomy, saying that governments that do not respect its independence “will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined an important regulatory institution”.

On Thursday, he said that Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections exceeding Rs 1 lakh crore, the rupee appreciating by 40-50 paise and the performance of crude and bond yields were “very good developments essential for sound macroeconomic performance of India”.

Acharya’s remarks brought into spotlight the differences between the RBI and the government, as reports also suggested that the Centre has invoked a never-before-used section of the RBI Act to make the central bank fall in line.

IANS

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has called on technology companies to defend users’ privacy as human right, urging firms and governments to collectively work together to protect the most vulnerable section in society.

Speaking at an event “Future Decoded” here on Thursday, Nadella applauded the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as first step towards securing data privacy, The Registrar reported.

“All of us will have to think about the digital experiences we create to treat privacy as a human right,” Nadella was quoted as saying.

“GDPR as a piece of legislation, a piece of regulation is a great start and we’ve done a lot of hard work to become compliant with GDPR,” Nadella added, adding that the companies need to develop ethical standards around Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Nadella said that 54 Azure Cloud regions worldwide is “more than any other provider”.

According to him, underwater data centres will play a key role in expanding Microsoft’s Cloud computing platform.

Under its “Project Natick”, Mictosoft has already deployed a 40-foot data centre pod on the seafloor off the coast of Scotland.

“Since 50 per cent of the world’s population lives close to water bodies, we think this is the way we want to think about future data centre expansion,” Nadella said.

Microsoft also unveiled an AI report titled “Maximising the AI Opportunity” for businesses.

The company announced at the event that the health agency NHS Scotland will deploy Office 365 to all of its 161,000 employees, moving away from a complicated organisation that included more than 100 separate computer systems.

Microsoft also formed a strategic partnership with Centrica, the British energy and services company behind brands like British Gas, Dyno and Direct Energy.

Centrica plans to transform field operations by leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Artificial Intelligence, providing employees with real time and actionable insight so they can improve customer service.

IANS