World's Richest City Has Over 3 Lakh Millionaires: Report

NEW YORK, April 18: New York has taken the crown of being the world's richest city, yet again, with the most millionaires in 2023, according to a report. The city has 3,40,000 millionaires, according to global wealth tracker Henley & Partners.

The city is followed by Tokyo and San Francisco Bay Area with resident millionaire populations of 290,300 and 285,000, respectively.

The report - World's Wealthiest Cities Report 2023 - covers 97 cities across nine regions worldwide (Africa, Australasia, CIS, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia) and includes most of the world's top wealth hubs.

The US dominated the list with four of its cities - New York, The Bay Area, Los Angeles and Chicago - making it to the list. China has two of its cities (Beijing and Shanghai) in the list.

London has dropped to fourth place on this year's list with 258,000 resident high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), followed by city-state Singapore with 240,100. In 2000, London was the top city in the world for millionaires, but it has slipped down the list over the past 20 years.

The Big Apple - a nickname for New York City - is home to 3,40,000 millionaires, 724 centi-millionaires, and 58 billionaires. It is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market cap (the NYSE and the Nasdaq). The city comprises the five boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island, and features some of the world's most exclusive residential streets, including 5th Avenue in Manhattan where prime apartment prices can exceed $27,000 per square meter, according to the report.

IMF Lowers India's Growth Projection To 5.9 Percent For 2023-24

WASHINGTON, April 11: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday lowered India's economic growth projection for the current fiscal to 5.9 per cent from 6.1 per cent earlier. Yet India will continue to be the fastest-growing economy in the world.

In its annual World Economic Outlook, IMF also lowered the forecast for 2024-25 fiscal (April 2024 to March 2025) to 6.3 per cent from the 6.8 per cent it had predicted in January this year.

The growth rate of 5.9 per cent in the 2023-24 fiscal compares to an estimated 6.8 per cent in the previous year.

IMF growth forecast is lower than projections by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). RBI sees a 7 per cent GDP growth in 2022-23 and a 6.4 per cent in the current fiscal that started on April 1.

The government is yet to release full-year GDP numbers for 2022-23.

Despite a significant drop in growth rate projections from 6.8 per cent in 2022 to 5.9 per cent, India continues to be the fastest-growing economy in the world, the World Economic Outlook figures revealed.

China's growth rate is projected to be 5.2 per cent in 2023 and 4.5 per cent in 2024 against its growth rate of three per cent in 2022.

On the surface, the global economy appears to be poised for a gradual recovery from the powerful blows of the pandemic and Russia's unprovoked war on Ukraine. China is rebounding strongly following the reopening of its economy. Supply-chain disruptions are unwinding, while the dislocations to energy and food markets caused by the war are receding, said IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.

"Simultaneously, the massive and synchronous tightening of monetary policy by most central banks should start to bear fruit, with inflation moving back toward its targets.

"In our latest forecast, global growth will bottom out at 2.8 per cent this year before rising modestly to 3.0 per cent in 2024. Global inflation will decrease, although more slowly than initially anticipated, from 8.7 per cent in 2022 to 7.0 per cent this year and 4.9 per cent in 2024," he said.

According to him, this year's economic slowdown is concentrated in advanced economies, especially the euro area and the United Kingdom, where growth is expected to fall to 0.8 per cent and -0.3 per cent this year before rebounding to 1.4 and 1 per cent, respectively.

By contrast, despite a 0.5 percentage point downward revision, many emerging market and developing economies are picking up, with year-end to year-end growth accelerating to 4.5 per cent in 2023 from 2.8 per cent in 2022, he wrote in a blog post.

Gourinchas has argued that more than ever, policymakers need a steady hand and clear communication. With financial instability contained, monetary policy should remain focused on bringing inflation down, but stand ready to quickly adjust to financial developments.

"A silver lining is that the banking turmoil will help slow aggregate activity as banks curtail lending. In and of itself, this should partially mitigate the need for further monetary tightening to achieve the same policy stance.

"But any expectation that central banks will prematurely surrender the inflation fight would have the opposite effect: lowering yields, supporting activity beyond what is warranted, and ultimately complicating the task of monetary authorities," he said.

India Links Natural Gas Prices With Imported Crude; PNG, CNG To Cost Less

NEW DELHI, April 6: The government has approved a new method to fix the price of natural gas. Natural gas produced from legacy old fields, known as APM gas, will now be linked to crude oil price instead of gas prices in surplus nations such as the US, Canada and Russia, Union Minister Anurag Thakur told reporters after a cabinet meeting today.

This will make piped natural gas (PNG) cheaper by 10 per cent and lower the cost of compressed natural gas (CNG) by 6 per cent to 9 per cent, oil secretary Pankaj Jain said today.

The government will issue a notification tomorrow to announce this change and the decision will come into force from Saturday.

"The price of such natural gas shall be 10 per cent of the monthly average of Indian Crude Basket and shall be notified on a monthly basis," the government said in a statement, referring to India's crude purchase and how much of it would be linked with fixing the price of natural gas.

India is targetting to increase the share of natural gas in the primary energy mix from the current 6.5 per cent to 15 per cent by 2030. The reforms will help expand the consumption of natural gas and will contribute to achievement of target of emission reduction and net zero, the government said in the statement released via the Press Information Bureau.

The Petroleum Ministry will issue a notification on Friday to implement the new domestic gas pricing guidelines approved by the Union Cabinet

Oil Minister Hardeep Puri tweeted the move will protect the interest of consumers.

"In continuation to various initiatives taken under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to protect the interest of consumers by reducing the impact of increase in international gas prices on gas prices in India, the Union Cabinet approves revised domestic gas pricing guidelines," Puri said.

Currently, domestic gas prices are fixed every six months based on prices at four gas trading hubs - Henry Hub, Albena, National Balancing Point (Britain) and Russia.

The government said the pricing method based on the four gas hubs had a significant time lag and very high volatility, so the need for this reform was felt.

"The revised guidelines make prices linked to crude, which is a practice now followed in most industry contracts, is more relevant to our consumption basket and has deeper liquidity in global trading markets, on a real time basis," the government said.