German Economy Faces Gloom as Structural Challenges and Global Downturn Loom
– IMF and OECD predict Germany to be the worst-performing major economy in the world this year.
– Energy-intensive industrial sectors’ production down 17% since the start of last year.
– German carmaking industry losing market share to cheaper Chinese rivals in the electric vehicle sector.
– Analysts forecast German GDP to shrink 0.35% this year.
– Effective tax rate on company profits at 28.8%, well above EU average of 18.8%.
UPI in India
– About 350 million people use UPI for paying for goods, services, or money transfers.
– UPI recorded almost 10 billion transactions in July, over 50% higher than the same month last year.
– The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a plan for “conversational” payments using AI-based speech recognition.
