Gold Chain

 Historically human beings  transformed themselves from nomadic community to settled life primarily on the river banks and started to cultivate land. Later handicrafts and barter system evolved, and cities  and countries gradually developed. After settled life and cities came into existence population not only spread to different countries and continents but also started to multiply across the globe spanning in decades and centuries. Technically speaking growth of  population depends on birth rate, death rate, fertility rate and migration. While birth rates are measured through the live births of babies born yearly per 1000 people in a population, death rates are measured through yearly deaths per 1000 population. Total fertility rate of a population is the  average number of children that would be born to  females over their  life  time.On the other hand migration both within the country and across countries are determined by both push forces lik...

 Sovereign debt refers to the borrowings of the Governments which is also called as the public debt. Usually Governments resort to borrowings when their revenues or receipts(public revenues)are in short of their expenditures ( Public Expenditure). After the second world war countries witnessed mounting public debt in recent years. The reasons for mounting debt of countries  were  attributed to - 1. Covid19 pandemic which resulted in both revenue loss to the Government and increased public borrowings. Countries were even forced to borrow not only internally but externally also to meet expenditures on urgent health infrastructure and stimulus packages to vulnerable sections. Problems were further aggravated by sharp decline in economic activities and shrinking trade and investment flows.2.High interest rates.Invariably all countries including many developing and less developed countries have had to borrow at high interest rates on account of their weak credit worthiness whi...

 IMF's  analysis and projections contained in the half yearly "World Economic Outlook April 2023" on its surveillance of economic growth of member countries including policies, global economic system and international financial markets and global development indicate that the economic outlook predicts  a rocky recovery. Global economy is at a highly uncertain period due to cumulative effects of three years of adverse shocks- notably Covid19 pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine, sanctions induced dislocation of energy and goods market impact,commodity price spikes, supply chain disruptions, stickier global inflation and recent vulnerabilities to banking and financial crises.In the given scenario IMF's global growth projection is expected to  slow down to 2.8% in 2023 compared to 3.4% estimated for 2022. The average global growth which was 3.9% in 2005-14 remained less  than 4 for many  years till 2019 at 2.8% and-2.8% in2020and 6.3 in 2021.Global growth rem...

 Reserve Bank of India in its Monetary Policy  announced on April 6th 2023 after increasing its repo rate (Repurchase option rate) continuously six times in 11 months decided to pause now with the  existing 6.5%. Repo rate refers to the rate at which Reserve Bank of India lends money to Commercial banks to meet any shortage of funds. Hike in repo rate is taken as a major monetary instrument to  control inflation. When there is a shortage of funds commercial banks borrow money from RBI against securities like treasury bills or Government bonds which is settled according to the repo rate. An increase in repo rate raise the costs of  borrowing by both public and private sectors  under different schemes and projects like home loan, EMI etc. On the contrary a decrease in repo rate not only reduces the cost  of borrowing but also provides greater liquidity. Similarly  the Marginal Standing Facility Rate (MSF)  allows the commercial banks to avail f...

 The new Foreign Trade policy announced by Commerce Minister target $2 trillion in goods and services exports by 2030 from $ 760 billion in 2022-23.FTP 2023 is being announced to provide the policy continuity and a responsive framework.Subsequent revision (s) in the FTP shall be done as and when required without any  specific date. a focus on boosting e-commerce exports at least 10% of the total goods and services exports. The new policy shifts from an "incentive based regime "to a regime of "remission and entitled based regime " making it compliant with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.Greater FTP focuses on making districts export hubs.ease of doing business, and a one time special  amnesty scheme for default in export obligations.It focuses on lowering costs costs for smaller firms also by offering swifter clearances. Policy allows for adjustment based on world trade industry feedback in addition to export promotionE initiatives like encouraging international...