In her Union Budget 2022 speech on February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the issuance of sovereign green bonds during the upcoming fiscal year. “As a part of the government’s overall market borrowings in 2022-23, sovereign green bonds will be issued for mobilizing resources for green infrastructure. The proceeds will be deployed in public sector projects which help in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy,” Ms. Sitharaman stated. Several Indian non-financial corporations have issued a variety…
By Kavaljit Singh | Briefing Paper # 51 | January 28, 2022
This week, all eyes were on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the Federal Reserve, as financial markets and policymakers worldwide awaited the outcome of the committee’s deliberations. The FOMC concluded its deliberations on Wednesday with the release of a policy statement and a virtual press conference by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Based on its deliberations, the FOMC signaled its willingness to accelerate plans to wind down monetary policy stimulus announced in response to the…
By Kavaljit Singh | Briefing Paper # 50 | January 21, 2022
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, emerging market economies will continue to struggle to improve their financial resilience in the face of numerous domestic and global headwinds. The emergence of new virus variants like Omicron serves as a stark reminder that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, and it could jeopardize the economic recovery prospects of both emerging and advanced economies.
First identified in Botswana and South Africa in November 2021, the highly-contagious Omicron variant is already…
By Biswajit Dhar | Briefing Paper # 49 | January 10, 2022
After they forced the government to repeal the three controversial farm laws, and thus to ensure the continuation of the minimum price support mechanism, India’s farmers face yet another challenge, this time from World Trade Organization (WTO). On 14th December, a WTO dispute settlement panel concluded in its report that India was violating its commitments under the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) by granting price support to sugarcane producers and export subsidies to sugar during the period 2014/15 to 2018/19.
By Ranja Sengupta | Briefing Paper # 48 | November 23, 2021
In a historic move, the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14.6 mandated the World Trade Organization (WTO) to “prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, and eliminate subsidies that contribute to IUU fishing …, recognizing that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries should be an integral part of the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiation”.
The developed countries used this mandate to launch active negotiations on disciplining…
