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.... continued from Part I published at https://tryxyz.com/article28430-INDIA-EMERGING-AS-THE-MOST-ATTRACTIVE-DESTINATION-FOR-GLOBAL-CEMENT-MANUFACTURERS

China has cement capacity of around 3.5bn tonnes (source China Cement Big Data Research Institute) in which the industry leader China National Building Material (CNBM) Group alone has a share of 515m tonnes while the second largest player Anhui Conch has capacity of around 370m tonnes. Combination of excess capacity, price weakness resulting from demand squeeze in the real estate sector, unhealthy competition and fall in profit margins have kept the condition ideal for mergers and acquisitions leading to consolidation of Chinese cement industry. Then there is constant nudge from Beijing, worried about cement’s share in carbon emissions and economic burden that overcapacity entails, for deep capacity reorganisation. CNBM, a state undertaking, that itself merged into it another public sector unit China National Materials Group in 2016, is undergoing deep reorganisation for some time going beyond cement to rearrangement of production equipment development and manufacturing operations.

NEW YORK: Vice President Kamala Harris has reminded all of a key insight into social and political analysis. In what has become a signature catchphrase, none of us just “fell out of a coconut tree.” We “exist in the context of everything that has come before us.” Karl Marx himself couldn’t have said it better.

India’s Budget 2024-25 once again strengthens the Centre’s grip over the states by keeping them fund starved. They now seem to be on complete mercy of the PM Narendra Modi led government for funds. Despite the 15th Finance Commission’s recommendation for 41 per cent of revenue share from the central taxes collected from the states, the current budget would give only 32.5 per cent, even less than 32.6 per cent in FY 2023-24 provisional estimate.

Supreme Court stays the Kanwar Yatra row. In its interim orders to Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh governments, it said, “Do Not force the owners of eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their names outside shops.” According to legal news website “Live Law,” The court also said that the very order was discriminatory.

KOLKATA: West Bengal unit of BJP seems to have developed a penchant of shooting itself on the foot. This time it is Balurghat MP and Union minister of state for education Sukanta Majumdar who is holding the smoking gun after he has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make north Bengal a part of North East.

The annual government budget is all about the expenditure and its direction. Income is generated generally through tax and non-tax revenues and borrowing to take care of the expenditure. Normally, the expenditure part comprises seven main aspects – the government’s own maintenance cost, defence, healthcare, social security, education, elderly care, and debt servicing. Even in China’s centralized economy, education, health and elderly care get special focus in its annual budget expenditure. The enlarged BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s new budget, presented in Parliament on Tuesday by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during a 85-minute-long speech, failed to throw enough light on how the common man will be benefited from the government’s proposed gross expenditure of Rs. 48.21 lakh crore during the current financial year.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has provided a theoretical framework, explained in the acronym EMPLOYMENT, for her budget formulation: E for Employment and Education, M for MSMEs, P for Productivity, L for Land, O for Opportunity, Y for Youth, M for Middle Class, E for Energy Security, N for New Generation Reforms, and T for Technology. A clever job indeed. But she has done a cleverer job by constructing an index, which can appropriately be termed CONANDROM in allocating budget resources. It would expand to chances of Nitish And Naidu to Ditch the Rule of Modi and provides a weighted index of the risk faced by the Modi government from possible threats from alliance partners.

Like in so many other industries, China dwarfs all other cement producing countries in capacity and production. And that is not going to change any time in future either. The other Asian nation India endowed with rich limestone deposits spread in various parts of the country may be trailing China by a long margin in capacity, number of manufacturers and output, but it remains the most attractive destination for cement makers.

Indian Railways Budget 2024-25 has clearly shifted its priority from addressing the needs of the poor and common people as a means of mass transport system at affordable travel cost to fulfilling the demands of the aspirational class of the country who can afford the high-cost of railway travel as it is reflected in the focus on Vande Bharat flagship trains apart from developing Amrit Bharat trains and Vande Metro.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is once again an unremitting tale of wilful neglect and political bias. The first Union Budget of the Modi Government 3, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, has once again given short shrift to Kerala’s wish list.