Author: Anjali Singh

According to a report from Mastercard SpendingPulse, holiday sales increased 8.5% this year as consumers purchased more clothes, jewelry, and electronics. As compared to 2020, fashion sales rose 47%, jewelry sales 32%, and electronics sales 16% over 2020, as well as at least 20% over pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Department stores saw sales increase by 21% over last year and 10% over two years ago. The holiday season measured from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 saw a significant increase in sales in stores and online. Mastercard noted that during the holiday season, Black Friday was the top day for spending,…

A report by the Financial Times stated that the United Arab Emirates plans to eliminate monopolies on imports for some prominent business families. Reuters sought comment from the government but state news agency WAM cited a Ministry of Economy statement saying a draft law on commercial agencies was still in its legislative process, so “it is still too early to share any details.”. FT reported that the government is proposing legislation to end automatic renewals of commercial agency agreements. After a contract expires, foreign firms would be able to distribute their goods or change their local agent. The report quotes…

According to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser on Thursday, Canada successfully granted 401,000 foreigners permanent residency. This all happened by concentrating its efforts on temporary residents already in Canada. Since COVID-19 closed Canada’s borders, we saw a drop in new permanent residents in 2020. This drop was about 45% to 185,000 in the last year.  This fall over harmed the country’s economy as the country relies heavily on immigration to drive its economy and support an aging population. For the first time in over a century, Canada welcomed 401,000 permanent residents, a record number. “Last year, we set a large goal.…

A new Omicron variant is affecting China’s economy, while a severe downturn in the property sector has cut the World Bank’s forecast for China’s economic growth this year and next. Compared with last year, the bank expects China’s GDP to grow by 8% in 2021 – that’s down from its prior estimates. (In October, the World Bank projected that China’s GDP would grow 8.1% this year. In June, it forecasted 8.5%). It also lowered its forecast for 2022 to 5.1% from 5.4%, which would be the country’s second slowest growth pace since 1990, when the economy rose 3.9% after international…

LocalCircles survey found that half of the consumers are unable to figure out the retail price as well as the best before the date of packaged products sold on newer e-commerce sites and apps such as Meesho, Shopee, and Swiggy. To make online shopping easier for consumers, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs introduced Packaged Commodity Rules (PCR) 2017, amendment on January 1, 2018. This made it mandatory for all e-commerce sites and apps in India to display all MRPs for packaged goods available for sale.  In addition, the PCR 2017 amendment stipulated that all human consumption packaged products must be…