While global office rental markets continue to face headwinds, India’s office sector is bucking the trend with sustained growth in office leasing and rentals, according to a report by real estate firm Vestian released on Thursday.

According to the report, India reported the highest ever leasing of 70.7 Mn sq ft in 2024, registering an annual increase of 16 per cent. Sub-dollar rentals across India’s top seven cities fuelled this momentum, making the country a key outlier in an otherwise subdued global landscape.

In stark contrast to major global cities like New York, Seattle, Boston, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, which have witnessed rental declines over the last five years, India witnessed a steady upward movement.

Notably, while some Western markets such as London and Miami posted increases of 31 per cent and 53 per cent respectively, the broader global sentiment reflects a slowdown due to rising vacancy rates and rapidly changing workplace strategies, the report states.

India’s goods and services exports have crossed a record $820 billion in financial year 2024-25, which represents a close to 6 per cent increase over the corresponding figure of $778 billion for the previous financial year, despite the economic uncertainties in global markets, according to data compiled by the Commerce Ministry.

The figures were revealed at a meeting held by Commerce and Industry Minister (CIM) Piyush Goyal with the Export Promotion Councils and industry bodies here to discuss the emerging trade scenario.

The minister complimented the exporters for the all-time high achievement in exports in spite of multiple headwinds, including the Red Sea crisis, Israel-Hamas conflict spilling over to the Gulf region, continuation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and slow growth in some developed economies. The Minister lauded the exporters for their resilience and efforts.

The Cabinet Committee on Security, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has cleared the Rs 63,000 crore government-to-government deal with France to buy 26 Rafale fighter jets for the Indian Navy, senior officials said.

The deal includes 22 single-seater aircraft and four twin-seater variants, designed specifically for the maritime requirement of the Indian Navy as China increasingly flexes its muscle in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Rafale procurement will include weapons, simulator, spares, associated ancillary equipment, crew training and logistics support for the Indian Navy from the French government.

The 26 Rafale-M jets for the Navy, manufactured by Dassault Aviation, are expected to be delivered within 37 to 65 months after the final contract is signed in the coming weeks. The delivery of all the planes is scheduled to be completed by 2030-31, a senior official said.

Leading banks on Wednesday said that the RBI rate cut, coupled with the revision in stance to accommodative, is a swift and timely move and a forward guidance to the market to stay supportive against evolving global uncertainties, along with empowering the consumers.

The 25bps rate cut is likely to spur demand for home, auto, and personal loans, especially in tier 2 and tier 3 markets, where interest sensitivity is higher, said Binod Kumar, MD and CEO, Indian Bank.

Retail loans grew over 18 per cent YoY as per recent trends and a lower rate environment could further accelerate consumption and support economic momentum.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) accommodative monetary policy, combined with the government's growth-centric fiscal policy, will help boost domestic growth amid global economic turmoil, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said on Wednesday.

Terming the central bank’s decision to continue with the rate easing cycle by reducing the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.0 per cent as “timely and prudent,” Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of CII, said the rate cut coupled with the shift in monetary policy stance from 'neutral' to 'accommodative,' too, is a big positive.

"This change, which CII has long advocated, firmly emphasises the Central Bank's pro-growth approach while maintaining vigilance regarding inflation outlook,” Banerjee said in a statement.

In order to further boost digital payments, the National Payments Corporation of India will be enabled to set the limit on person-to-merchants transactions via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said on Wednesday.

At present, the transaction amount for UPI, covering both person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant payments (P2M), is capped at Rs 1 lakh, except for specific use cases of P2M payments which have higher limits, some at Rs 2 lakh and others at Rs 5 lakh.

“To enable the ecosystem to respond efficiently to new use cases, it is proposed that NPCI, in consultation with banks and other stakeholders of the UPI ecosystem, may announce and revise such limits based on evolving user needs,” said Malhotra after the 54th meeting of the monetary policy committee (MPC).

Appropriate safeguards will be put in place to mitigate risks associated with higher limits. Banks shall continue to have the discretion to decide their own internal limits within the limits announced by NPCI.

Indian equity markets have now entered the ‘attractive zone’ from the ‘fair’ and ‘moderately expensive’ zones where the markets remained for most of 2024, a new report said on Tuesday.

This is a notable improvement as the shift indicates a good opportunity for long-term investors, according to the Union Mutual Fund report.

Despite global geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainties, the long-term outlook for India remains positive.

Harshad Patwardhan, Chief Investment Officer at Union AMC, said that strong macroeconomic fundamentals, healthy corporate and banking balance sheets, expected demand revival due to tax relief and welfare schemes, and signs of a new private investment cycle are all encouraging factors.

The Indian stock markets staged a robust relief rally on Tuesday, snapping a three-day losing streak ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary policy decision on April 9.

Both the Sensex and Nifty rose sharply, each gaining around 1.5 per cent by the end of the day as investors brushed aside concerns over US tariff threats.

The Sensex jumped 1,089 points, or 1.49 per cent, to close at 74,227.08, while the Nifty climbed 374 points, or 1.69 per cent, to settle at 22,535.85.

The Finance Ministry's Department of Financial Services has notified the amalgamation of 26 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) on the principles of 'One State One RRB' as part of the fourth phase of the continuing exercise to improve efficiency, according to an official statement issued on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Finance had rolled out an amalgamation plan in November 2024 for consultation with stakeholders. After consultation with stakeholders, the amalgamation of 26 RRBs in 10 states and one UT has been carried out with the primary focus on the improvement in scale efficiency and cost rationalisation, the statement said.

At present, 43 RRBs are functioning in 26 states and 2 UTs. Post amalgamation, there will be 28 RRBs in 26 states and 2 UTs with more than 22,000 branches covering 700 districts. Their predominant area of operation is in rural areas, with approximately 92 per cent of branches in rural and semi-urban areas, the statement said.

Measures taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ease the monetary policy in recent months are expected to support a year-on-year credit expansion of around 10.8 per cent at Rs 19 lakh crore to Rs 20.5 lakh crore in 2025-2026, according to an ICRA report released on Tuesday.

Such measures include the repo rate cut, deferment of proposed changes in the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) framework and additional provisions on infra projects, along with the roll-back of increased risk weights on lending to unsecured consumer credit and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).

Besides this, the durable liquidity infusion by the RBI through open market operations (OMO) by way of purchases of Government bonds and forex swaps with banks, would aid the liquidity and faster transmission of the ongoing cut in policy rates, the report states.