Good morning! Maverick billionaire Elon Musk stood Prime Minister Narendra Modi up last week saying he had “very heavy Tesla obligations”. The Tesla chief has slunk off to China instead to meet the top brass there to push for full-self-driving vehicles and permission to process local data outside the country to train autonomous driving algos. Planespotters locked on to a private Gulfstream jet, which Musk often uses, heading towards Beijing. These are indeed heavy duties.

🎧 The Ozempic effect on India's pharma landscape. Also in today’s episode: the ongoing challenges facing TikTok in the US. Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Market Signal*

Stocks & Economy: Foreign portfolio investors sold Indian equities worth nearly $720 million in April. The sale came after a net inflow of over ~$4 billion in March. The Business Standard reports that the sell-off was likely triggered by juicy US bond yields, which have now reached 4.7%.

Asian markets opened higher on Monday as traders count down to the Federal Reserve meeting this week. Oil prices fell due to US inflation data, which hurt prospects of interest rate cuts and boosted the dollar.

The GIFT Nifty indicates a positive start for Indian indices.

COMMODITIES

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

Misfortune elsewhere in the world was supposed to be an opportunity for Indian coffee growers but no one looked at the weathercock. 

Indian farmers predominantly grow the robusta variety—the legacy of an arabica price crash in the early aughts—whose prices have risen dramatically after crops failed in major farming regions such as Brazil, Vietnam, and Indonesia that account for 40% of the global output. The lucky turn, however, is fast fizzling out. 

Robusta, the staple bean in instant coffee, is a water guzzler, and the hills of Karnataka and Kerala where bulk of it is farmed, are running out of it. Some Indian growers are projecting a robusta yield shortfall of at least 30% this year. Add to that rising costs of packaging and transportation, and the edge of the precipice shows up right away. Read the full story at The Core.

PODCAST

Tune in every Monday to Friday as financial journalist and host Govindraj Ethiraj gives you the most important take on the latest in business and economy.

Today, he speaks to Yashwant Deshmukh of C Voter about lower turnouts in Phase 1 and 2 of India's 2024 general elections and the voter ID problem. Also in today’s episode: sugar crop check and outlook with Rahil Sheikh of MEIR Commodities.

TRADE

Make In India Leans On Made In China

Indian industry cannot live without China, it seems. India’s imports from its bigger neighbour grew 2.3 times faster in the past 15 years than shipments from other countries, according to a report from think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

In absolute terms, India’s exports to China have stood still at around $16 billion for five years, while imports surged from over $70 billion in FY19 to $101 billion in FY24, 98.5% of which were industrial products. For instance, nearly 30% of all industrial chemical and pharmaceutical input imports come from China. That share rises to 38.4% for electronics and 39.6% for machinery. The telecom, plastics, textiles, ships, glass, paper, and several other industries too depend heavily on Chinese imports.

India’s performance-linked incentive scheme has triggered investments in sectors such as electronics and energy storage, but hasn’t performed well in others such as drug making.

BANKING

Soon, Bank Loans May Dry Up

 Will Indian banks become tight-fisted when companies and projects need money the most? Quite likely, according to S&PGlobal Ratings. 

The rating agency’s director for South and South-east Asia Nikita Anand said banks might be compelled to slow down loan growth as deposit growth will decelerate. Anand expects credit growth to slow by two percentage points in FY25 from 16% in FY24. Every bank’s loan growth was 2-3 percentage points higher than deposit growth, forcing them to temper the former.

The Signal

As The Core reported, Indian banks are past the “Goldilocks period” of cheap funds and high margins. Between FY21 and FY23, bank deposits’ share in overall household financial assets fell from 39% to 32%. Among 32 listed banks, 31 reported a year-on-year decline in current and savings account deposits. This money largely comprises the savings of Indian households and forms about 90% of banks’ “core deposits”. The crisis is so acute that many banks are planning to embark on a costly strategy of expanding their branch network to mobilise deposits. As Barclays has argued, a rise in deposits was key to more job-creating investments, necessary for economic stability. A funds crunch for banks could not come at a worse time for India. A recent government report said 448 infrastructure projects were hit by cost overruns to the tune of Rs 5.55 lakh crore (~$66.5 billion).

FYI

Stop, please: About 200 shareholders of ICICI Securities, the broking services arm of ICICI Bank, have approached the National Company Law Tribunal against the company’s move to delist from exchanges.

Beware: China’s central bank has warned of a Silicon Valley Bank-type of situation developing in Chinese regional banks.  

Ready but waiting: India and Oman are on the verge of signing a trade agreement but it will have to wait until a new government takes over after June 4. 

Coup brewing: Knives will be out for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should his Conservative Party lose local elections next week as rivals prepare assault. 

Port politics: Sri Lanka hands over “world’s emptiest airport” near China-operated Hambantota port to a joint venture owned by Indian and Russian companies.

THE DAILY DIGIT

72,000

The net decline in headcount at India’s top six IT services companies in FY24. (The Economic Times)

FWIW

President has a ball: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner usually is the chance for the occupant of the house to not only freely hobnob with Washington’s political journalists, but also to attack opponents. Joe Biden was not going to be the one to miss the opportunity. He roasted rival Donald Trump, calling him “sleepy Don”, and portrayed himself as a grown man “running against a six-year-old”. Referring to Trump’s criminal trial over allegedly cooking records about paying to buy adult movie star Stormy Daniels’ silence, Biden said, “Donald has had a few tough days lately. You might call it Stormy weather”. Wicked Joe.