ET NEWS

A host of regulations, including the Carbon Tax, introduced by the European Union are expected to impact its businesses, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday. The EU has announced regulations such as Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) which have been strongly objected by India. "Because of all these regulations, I suspect that Europe is going to have an existential problem for their businesses. Their infrastructure is going to get costlier. Automobiles and planes are going to get costlier. "Their cost of living will be difficult to manage and they will be living in a cocoon, while other trading partners will be trading around the world with each other," he said at the Berlin Global Dialogue. The minister is in Berlin to participate in the dialogue, a meeting of leaders and German businesses to discuss ways to boost bilateral trade and investments. The minister said that there are 73 EU regulations. It is nearly impossible to fulfil the paperwork requirements to comply with these regulations, he said. "They (EU) are seeking to hyphenate too many issues. Trade is about trade, why are we hyphenating too many issues with tarde, we are actually messing up the free trade," he added. India is negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU. Under CBAM, Indian exports of steel, aluminum, and cement to the EU could face tariffs of 20-35 per cent.India's exports of products like coffee, leather hides and paperboard worth USD 1.3 billion annually to the European Union will get impacted due to the deforestation regulation adopted by the EU, a report by think tank GTRI has said.

India’s foreign exchange reserves rose by USD 4.496 billion to USD 702.28 billion for the week ending 17 October, mainly driven by an increase in the value of gold reserves, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Friday.In the previous week, the overall reserves had increased by USD 2.176 billion to USD 697.784 billion.For the week ending 17 October, foreign currency assets (FCA), the largest part of the reserves, fell by USD 1.692 billion to USD 570.411 billion. These assets are affected by changes in the value of currencies such as the euro, pound, and yen.Meanwhile, the value of gold reserves rose sharply by USD 6.181 billion to USD 108.546 billion during the week. Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) also saw a slight increase of USD 38 million, reaching USD 18.722 billion.India’s reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fell by USD 30 million to USD 4.602 billion in the reporting week, according to RBI data.The growth in gold reserves helped offset the dip in foreign currency assets, keeping India’s overall reserves at a strong level of over USD 700 billion.