The Daily Brief – 9th January 2020

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) released a report ‘Market Study on E-commerce in India: Key Findings and Observations’ on 8^th January, 2020. The market study for the report was initiated in April 2019 by CCI with an objective to understand the performance of e-commerce in India. The revenue from the E-Commerce sector is growing at the rate of 51%.In food sector, 83 percent of restaurants admitted that they have an online presence. The report also stated that the most of the consumers are using price comparison tools for hotel bookings.

Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the agreement between India and Mongolia on Cooperation in the Exploration and Uses of Outer Space for Peaceful and Civilian Purposes. The agreement was signed in New Delhi on 20^th September, 2019 during the visit of the President of Mongolia to India. The agreement set up a Joint Working Group with members from Department of Science (DOS) or ISRO and Communications and Information Technology Authority of the Government of Mongolia.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 8^th January, 2020 approved the Rs 5,559 crores North East Gas Pipeline Grid. The pipeline is to be constructed for around 1,656 km in eight states of the North East Region namely Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura. The Grid will supply CNG to automobiles, cooking gas to households and fuel to industry.

The 2nd National GST Conference of the Commissioners of the State Tax and Chief Commissioners of the Central Tax

The second National GST Conference of the Commissioners of the State Tax and Chief Commissioners of the Central Tax was held on 7^th January, 2020 in New Delhi to streamline the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Under the chairmanship of Revenue Secretary Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the meeting decided to constitute a Committee of Centre and State officers to examine and implement quick measures to curb fraudulent refund claims.

After 10 years of establishment of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in 2009, the identification mission is nearly complete with 1.2 billion Indians having an Aadhaar card. According to the State of Aadhaar report, 2019, Aadhaar has been the first identity document for around 65-70 million individuals.

World Bank released its study on affects of automation on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows in the world on 6^th January, 2020. Across the world, the rise of automation has raised concerns over its impact on employment, especially in poor countries. While automation will disrupt the flow of capital from rich to poorer countries, the poorest countries could actually gain from automation if adopted at right time.

Central Statistics Office (CSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme implementation released the first advance estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the fiscal year 2019-20 on 7^th January, 2020. The projected growth rate of GDP in FY20 is 5% which is the lowest since FY09, the year of the global financial crisis, when GDP grew at 3.1%. This is mainly due to the decline in the growth of manufacturing sector which grew at the rate of 2% in 2019-20 as compared to 6.9% in 2018-19. The GDP growth in FY19 was 6.8%.