India Spending

A new study has found that around 30 million people fall into the 'emerging' or 'aspirant' consumer category who have only recently begun spending more but remain cautious in their financial choices

The yearly remittance data shows a robust inclination among Indians towards international travel, with expenditures totalling $17 billion in FY24

The private sector has been going slow in adding fixed assets but squeezing out more

The household savings rate plummeted to a five-decade low in 2022-23 as people started spending after the restrictions on movement ended after the pandemic, the Reserve Bank of India said on Friday. Deputy Governor Michael Patra said the dip in net financial savings of households to 5.1 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in FY23 also includes an increase in liabilities, much of which are home loans that will show as investments in the next year. When asked if the decline in savings to a 47-year-low is indicative of over-leverage among the households, Patra reminded that historically, the average household savings rate was about 7.5 per cent but during the pandemic, it had gone up due to a variety of factors, including inability to spend due to the restrictions and also because of precaution savings. "as these movement restrictions were removed, people went out to spend and started to draw down those precaution savings. That is some of the phenomenon that we're seeing now,"

Percentages can mislead: A higher percentage of a lower GDP per head can translate into less absolute spending per head than a lower percentage of a much greater GDP per capita, notes T N Ninan

The growth in clean energy spending is driven by technologies including solar panels and electric vehicles that are key to cutting dependence on the use of oil, coal and natural gas

The digital transformation (DX) spending in India is likely to reach $85 billion by 2026 as firms in the country aim to reduce the costs by improving customer experience via digital transformation

India may increase rural spending by nearly 50% to 2 trillion rupees ($24.51 billion) next fiscal year, as the country seeks to boost jobs

Trouble is, the distribution of the Indian economic pie is more lopsided than the aggregate numbers suggest

The additional spending would represent about 2.5 per cent of the total budgeted so far for the current financial year