Economy & Banking Current Affairs July 2016

Economy & Banking Current Affairs July 2016

Vizag Port Declared as Second Gateway Port for Nepal

• Visakhapatnam port declared as the second gateway port for Nepal after Kolkata-Haldia on June 21, 2016.
• Visakhapatnam port has the deepest container terminal among major ports with permissible draft of 15 m and LOA up to 320 m.
• There is an Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Birgunz in Nepal connected by rail to Raxoul station in .India and the North and South highways in Nepal are also connected to India to serve the exim trade.
• Most of the transit cargo of Nepal will be from China. The terminal can act as an ideal gateway for East-bound cargo. Handling of cargo will be advantageous in terms of ocean freight and liner detention.

India Ranked 10th in FDI Inflows

• India stand at 10th position in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows globally and the fourth in developing Asia, as per the World Investment Report 2016 released by the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on June 21, 2016.
• India’s FDI inflows have increased to $ 44 billion in 2015 as compared to $ 35 billion in 2014. UNCTAD is a global centre of excellence, dealing with issues related to investment and enterprise development in the United Nations System.
• It builds on four decades of experience and international expertise in research and policy analysis, fosters intergovernmental consensus-building, and provides technical assistance to over 150 countries.

RBI Introduced ‘Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets Scheme’

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) formulated the ‘Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets’ (S4A) as an optional framework for the resolution of large stressed account on June 13, 2016.
• The S4A will cover those projects which have started commercial operations and have outstanding loan of over Rs 500 crore.
• It will determine the sustainable debt level for a stressed borrower, and bifurcation of the outstanding debt into sustainable debt and equity/quasi-equity instruments which are expected to provide upside to the lenders when the borrower turns around.
• In order to ensure transparency, an Overseeing Committee, set-up by the Indian Banks Association (IBA) and comprising of eminent experts, will independently review the processes involved in preparation of the resolution plan and the panel will be set-up in consultation with the RBI.