Gold hits 2-month high as recession concerns burnish safe-haven appeal

Agencies
June 3, 2019

Bengaluru, Jun 3: Gold prices rose on Monday to their highest in more than two months as heightened China-US trade tensions and Washington’s threat of tariffs on Mexico stoked worries of a global recession and drove investors to seek refuge in safe-haven bullion.

Spot gold was up 0.5 per cent at USD 1,312.37 per ounce at 0308 GMT, after touching its highest since March 27 at USD 1,312.60.

US gold futures rose 0.5 per cent to USD 1,317.50 an ounce.

“We are seeing a lot of traditional safe-haven hedging ... coming back to the fray,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner, SPI Asset Management.

“(Equity) markets seemed to be a little bit complacent. What caught them off-guard was Trump doubled down, signalling that (dealings between countries) on the trade war front is going to be quite aggressive.”

US stock futures, Asian share markets and oil prices slipped to multi-month lows on Monday amid the mounting trade worries.

Tensions between the United States and China escalated during the weekend as the two countries clashed over trade, technology and security.

“(Gold) markets are underpositioned and that’s why we are seeing investors aggressively chasing prices. There are bets getting placed on a more aggressive rate cut, another reason why we are seeing prices moving higher,” Innes said.

In a sign that Sino-US frictions are putting a big strain on the global economy, South Korea’s exports fell 9.4 per cent in May, worse than a median forecast for a 5.6 per cent decline, official data showed on Saturday.

The gloomy outlook has prompted traders to increase bets that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates sooner rather than later.

“Gold finally behaved like a safe haven last week, breaking out higher after the trade war escalation led to a code red for global growth,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, said in a note.

Gold prices surpassed the key USD 1,300 level for the first time since April on Friday after being stuck in a nearly USD 20 range for weeks.

Hedge funds and money managers increased their net long positions in COMEX gold in the week to May 28, data showed.

Indicating improved investor interest in gold, holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, rose 0.32 per cent to 743.21 tonnes on Friday from Thursday.

In other precious metals, silver edged up 0.6 per cent to USD 14.65 per ounce; platinum rose 1 per cent to USD 799.73 per ounce, after having fallen to its lowest level since Feb. 15 at USD 784.42, last week; and palladium rose 1.7 per cent to USD 1,347.10 per ounce.

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Agencies
June 24,2020

New Delhi, Jun 24: The Centre has made it mandatory for sellers to enter the 'Country of Origin' while registering all new products on government e-marketplace (GeM).

The e-marketplace is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry which facilitates the entry of small local sellers in public procurement, while implementing 'Make in India' and MSE Purchase Preference Policies of the Centre.

Accordingly, the ministry said the move has been made to promote 'Make in India' and 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat'.

The provision has been enabled via the introduction of new features on GeM.

Besides the registration process, the new feature also reminds sellers who have already uploaded their products, to disclose their products' 'Country of Origin' details.

The ministry further said that failing to disclose the detail will lead to removal of the products from the e-marketplace.

"GeM has taken this significant step to promote 'Make in India' and 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'," the ministry said in a statement.

"GeM has also enabled a provision for indication of the percentage of local content in products. With this new feature, now, the 'Country of Origin' as well as the local content percentage are visible in the marketplace for all items. More importantly, the 'Make in India' filter has now been enabled on the portal. Buyers can choose to buy only those products that meet the minimum 50 per cent local content criteria."

In case of bids, the ministry said that buyers can now reserve any bid for a "Class I Local suppliers. For those bids below Rs 200 crore, only Class I and Class II Local Suppliers are eligible to bid, with Class I supplier getting purchase preference".

In addition to this, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has reportedly called for a meeting with all e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Flipkart to display the country of origin on the products sold on their platform, as well as the extent of value added in India.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has blocked Bharti Airtel's Platinum and Vodafone Idea's RedX premium plans that offer faster data speeds and priority services to customers as both the plans were violating net neutrality norms.

The telecom watchdog has asked Bharti Airtel to explain within seven days how such a similar plan being launched does not violate the rules of net neutrality.

Vodafone Idea's RedX plan has been in the market since November 2019. They made some modifications in May 2020 and the Bharti Airtel was soon going to launch a similar plan.

According to TRAI, the higher speed for premium customers discriminate against others and violates net neutrality.

Responding to TRAI's move, Airtel spokesperson said: "We are passionate about delivering the best network and service experience to all our customers. This is why we have a relentless obsession to eliminate faults and have been consistently recognised by international agencies as the best network in terms of speed, latency and video experience."

"At the same time, we want to keep raising the bar for our post-paid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end," the spokesperson said.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Income Tax Department has facilitated a new functionality for banks and post offices to ascertain TDS applicability rates on cash withdrawal of above Rs 20 lakh in case of a non-filer of the income-tax return and that of above Rs 1 crore in case of a filer of the income-tax return.

In a statement, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said that now banks and post offices have to only enter the PAN of the person who is withdrawing cash for ascertaining the applicable rate of TDS.

So far, more than 53,000 verification requests have been executed successfully on this facility, a statement by the CBDT said.

"CBDT today said that this functionality available as 'Verification of applicability u/s 194N' on www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in since 1st July 2020, is also made available to the Banks through web-services so that the entire process can be automated and be linked to the Bank's internal core banking solution," it said.

On entering PAN by the bank or the post office, a message will be instantly displayed on the departmental utility: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 1 crore", in case the person withdrawing cash is a filer of the income-tax return.

In case the person withdrawing cash is a non-filer of income tax return, the message shown would be: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 20 lakh and at the rate of 5 per cent if it exceeds Rs 1 crore."

The CBDT said that the data on cash withdrawal indicated that huge amount of cash is withdrawn by the persons who have never filed income-tax returns.

To ensure filing of return by these persons and to keep track on cash withdrawals by the non-filers, and to curb black money, the Finance Act, 2020 with effect from July 1, 2020 further amended IT Act to lower threshold of cash withdrawal to Rs 20 lakh for the applicability of this TDS for the non-filers and also mandated TDS at the higher rate of 5 per cent on cash withdrawal exceeding Rs 1 crore by the non-filers.

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