000-tobecategorised

G20 Summit | Grand show, no deal  https://www-deccanherald-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/opinion%2Fg20-summit-grand-show-no-deal-2682528  Subhash Chandra Garg 12 September 2023 India rustled up and announced two new international alliances — the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the Global Biofuel Alliance. India produced the longest-ever Leaders’ Declaration with 83 paragraphs and 39 annexed documents running into thousands of pages. However, there is no single ready-to-implement agreement/actionable point in it.

The G20 Summit at the president’s/prime minister’s level was borne in the global financial crisis in 2008 to co-ordinate immediate rescue of the international financial system, and find durable solutions for its stability to generate sustained economic growth.  In the last 15 years, the G20 succeeded in delivering at least three major real deals. First, quick, and functional co-ordination smothered the global financial crisis and spawned new institutions and rules to bring about better financial stability. Second, the G20 built consensus on major taxation reforms, ushered in the Multilateral Convention on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS-MLI), and agreements on minimum taxation of multinational corporations and taxation of digital economies. Third, it did thrash out deals for infusion of capital in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The G20 Leaders’ Summit, however, got diverted into numerous other tracks — growth, taxation, trade, global warming, financial inclusion, infrastructure, digital economy, terrorism, money laundering, and everything under the sun. Instead of finding solutions for the big and pressing economic and financial problems, it degenerated into a body that produced a lot of verbiage.

CoP-28 is beset with problems even before it has begun https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/cop28-is-beset-with-problems-even-before-it-has-begun-11695557670450.html Rajrishi Singhal  24 Sep 2023 the UAE’s special envoy for climate change and CoP-28 president-designate, Sultan Ahmed Al Jabar, has requested CoP-28 to focus on four paradigm shifts: fast-tracking the energy transition and slashing emissions by 2030; setting a new climate finance template by delivering on old promises while developing a new financing framework; putting nature, people, lives and livelihoods at the heart of climate action; and mobilizing the most inclusive CoP ever.

Battered by inflation and faltering demand, India's consumer goods industry is ailing https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/deep-dive/story/battered-by-inflation-and-faltering-demand-indias-consumer-goods-industry-is-ailing-399174-2023-09-21 

 “Discretionary spending was cut as most households were under pressure because their overall purchasing power was down drastically. We were expecting [to] be out of the inflationary cycle and that consumer spending [would make a comeback] in 2023. But that has not happened. The inflationary trend continues, and the mass segment has not really come back. Therefore, we have witnessed a [contraction] in mass market categories in the last six months,” - Steep inflation and faltering demand have hit consumer goods makers hard in the past three years. There seems to be little respite as a fresh inflation surge and uneven spread of the monsoon could disrupt the firms' recovery- Kamal Nandi, the Business Head and Executive Vice President of Godrej Appliances

"As prices of raw materials like palm oil, skimmed milk powder, and crude oil rose by 50–120 per cent between December 2020 and December 2022, manufacturers had no option but to hike the prices of packaged goods. And volumes faltered as most low-to-middle-income households baulked at the idea of increasing their expenditure. - Sanjiv Mehta, former CEO and MD of consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever