Byapaar.com -The Indian Business Blog

As always, before I go into my personal post, lemme update you with some economic and business news from India –

• An Institute of Company Secretaries of India core group has recommended to set up rules for corporate governance which came into poor light when the Satyam scandal broke out. It seems the government has finally woke up to the ground reality of how lack of proper corporate governance rules can be so nakedly exploited by exectuives.
• The second important update is sharp fall in exports of merchandise products. India’s export for the month of March contracted by 14 to 20 percent from that of March, 2009. This was not unexpected though as Indian exporters fought hard for orders as most countries in the west are in recession. But the government and traders are optimistic about exports figure to remain at least static to that of 2008-2009 as G-20 summit have resolved to name and take action against protectionist countries.
• Another important business news is not particularly Indian, rather international but India is very much part of it and has huge bearings on its outcome. The G-20 summit held in London have pledged to raise $1.1 trillion to help countries in need during this tough economic scenario. It has also resolved to “name and shame” countries who are following a protectionist policy. But the US proposal for another round of stimulus package was not accepted by leaders of G-20 countries. There was also call for tighter financial regulations and tax havens are to be blacklisted from now on.
• The G-20 summit and some domestic measures has helped in raising the market as Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index (sensex) was up by 447 points. All major international markets except FTSE of London also went up.

As we just read about all economic woes with countries hit by recession, business going downhill, is it wise of me to go for an Start-Up? I believe - this is the right kind of time for me to go for it. There are some reasons for my positive thinking.

• Firstly, the nature of my business. Well, you might have guessed it if you are a regular reader! I want to seriously enter the web world with domaining, blogging, SEO service, content writing services. As the global economy is going through a rough time, more and more businesses and companies will llok for greater reach and embrace e-commerce thus more opportunities for web service providers. The market can not go much downhill from present state. Indeed I expect the web to grow faster once global economy shows signs of recovery. Hence, more and more money will be spent for online advertising.
• The second point is - you need loans for your business and this is just the right time to get them. With governments taking step after step to stimulate the economies, interest rates very cheap (in fact I expect it to go down more) - there is now no problem in securing fast small business loans. As my business involves only buying some computers and setting up a small office, I don’t need huge amount o loans.
• With changing business environment, everything is becoming really cheap including real estate.

So, isn’t it the right time for me to mull over a small start-up? What do you say? :p

As usual, before I do a personal blogpost – here is some business updates that caught my attention over last couple of weeks.
• First and foremost among them is huge decrease in the rate of inflation that is almost @ 0% (.27% to be exact) which is the lowest in the last 30 years (lowest since 1977-78).
There is nothing surprising though with the figure as the Parliamentary election is little bit more than two weeks away and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is doing its best to utilize as much economic mileage as possible even if at the expense of the state exchequer. I have serious doubts if this inflation rate is a genuine reflection of the market or a manipulated one as I don’t see any marked reduction in prices of daily essentials which is so important for the poor and lower middle class people like me!
• The second major business development that attracted my interest is the official debut of “Nano” Car by Tata Automobiles Ltd. which has become the cheapest car in the world priced about $2500.
The irony is that, the car is rolling out for the first time from Mumbai, and not Singur or Kolkata as was originally planned. As they say “History repeats itself.” There was a time when the left front came to power in West Bengal after sweeping the rural Bengal on the promise of Land Reform Movement. The left front government did keep its words and introduced laws for sweeping change in land allocation favoring poor and landless farmers. This caused industries and businesses to move away from Bengal. But now, the same Left Front government has been trying to attract new investments and industries after realization that agriculture alone can not take Bengal too far and to bring more jobs, development – industry is the only way. As much power as they enjoy with huge majority in the Assembly, their only roadblock is one lady, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamul Congress Supremo. While the left front give red carpet welcome to any industrialists interested to invest in Bengal by way of offering Tax soaps, lands of their choice – Ms. Mamata is leading an ever growing movement against usage of fertile land for industry.
The Clock has now turned full circle in Bengal politics, business and economics. :p
• The third notable development is strong demand by most political parties to bring back the $1456 billion black money kept deposited in foreign banks (mostly Swiss Banks) by Indian super rich, corrupt politicians and officials.

Now, I may write some personal notes which might be helpful for some in credit card debt. Some of my old readers might have read one of my posts that I did few months back on how reckless use of credit card may put someone in serious debt trap.
Now that I have my own credit card and more importantly as I want to use it very frequently on my web business, there is huge chance that I might use it for just about everything and might have to seek help of credit card debt consolidation companies offering help to people suffering from the bad habit of misusing a credit card.
But I promise, as I know the danger before-hand, I’ll not fall into the trap and use it with out most caution. Besides paying for hosting and domains of my sites from time to time, my primary usage will be to invest money in domains. Domain business has been one of the most mysterious and interesting of all online businesses for some time now. One has to learn a lot, do huge amount of research about the market, find premium domains and invest in them. Thousands of $$$ might be left unused for long, but it might also fetch huge profits. (business.com was sold for $8 million). So, I am planning to join this business and use my credit card only for this purpose.
I already bought a domain for $110 and I reckon it is worth around $250.
In the beginning I’ll start slowly, going one step at a time. Once I am confident, I will get into this seriously. And for this I must need a credit card. Domain registrars accept payment only through credit card or Paypal (also require a card for verification). The great advantage fr

Day before yesterday, the caretaker Finance Minister of India Mr. Pranab Mukherjee (the Ministry usually lies with the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh who is recovering from By-pass surgery) announced another round of stimulus package to bring impetus into the economy. This is the third such initiative by the government in as many months. This time no fund is to be infused to help the market reeling under severe liquidity crunch but the latest effort is aimed at reducing production costs of goods so that demand increases and industry grows. For this purpose the government has reduced excise duties on several products by 2 percent to 8 percent from existing rate of 10 percent. This effectively means cheaper steel, cement and consumer durable goods. The automobile sector which had a booming last year but suffering from current economic meltdown will not benefit directly. But due to cheaper rates of raw materials and accessories it might get some indirect lift. Also the heavy vehicle sector which has excise rate of 20 percent will get direct benefit from the latest move.

But the highest gain will be reaped by the service sector as service tax too was slashed from present level of 12 percent to 10 percent. It will benefit all those industries engaged in service sectors like hospitality, BPO and telecom. Experts expect that mobile rate will come down due to reduction in service tax. This reduction in taxes will cost the government to the tune of Rs. 300 billion.

This third stimulus package was announced on a day global rating agency Standard & Poor downgraded India’s sovereign credit rating due to ever growing fiscal deficit that is likely to be around 11.2 percent of GDP (Rs. 3620 billion) during this fiscal ending 31st March. Being an election year, the government took many populist measures like hiking central government employees’ salaries, writing off agricultural debt, high crude prices for most part of the year and lastly but not the least – the economic stimulus packages. This down gradation will not harm the government as it seldom borrows from foreign Read the rest of this entry »