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Retail sales of automobiles in India grew 8.31 per cent in August this year on the back of increase in registrations of vehicles across all major segments, automobile dealers' body FADA said on Thursday.

As per data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), total vehicle retail sales in the country stood at 15,21,490 units last month as compared to 14,04,704 units in August 2021.

Passenger vehicles (PV) retail sales stood at 2,74,448 units as compared to 2,57,672 units in the year-ago month, a growth of 6.51 per cent.

Two-wheeler (2W) retail sales also grew by 8.52 per cent at 10,74,266 units in August 2022 as against 9,89,969 units in the same month last year, it added.

FADA said the three-wheeler (3W) segment witnessed the highest growth rate last month posting 83.14 per cent increase at 56,313 units, up from 30,748 units in the same month a year ago.

robust 24.12 per cent growth at 67,158 units as against 54,107 units in the year-ago month.

FADA President Manish Raj Singhania said August retail sales were not encouraging and not as per expectations of dealers, who anticipated a good start to the festive season with Ganesh Chaturthi.

"When compared with August 2019, a pre-COVID month, total vehicle retails fell by 7 per cent. While PV outperformed handsomely by growing 41 per cent, CV also turned positive by growing 6 per cent and thus came out of the COVID blues. All the other segments were in the red with 2W, 3W and tractors falling by 16 per cent, 1 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively," he added.

Singhania said although the 2W segment grew 8.5 per cent last month on a year-on-year basis, "it continues to face COVID blues due to underperformance of Bharat (rural India) and is still not above 2019 levels".

"This coupled with price hikes has made the 2W product out of reach for most entry-level customers. With erratic monsoon, the crop realisation has been low and flood-like situation has restricted customer movement," he said.

On the other hand, the PV segment continues to be on a strong run as demand for all sub categories of vehicles except entry-level remained strong.

"This is also aided by new feature-rich launches which OEMs have been doing since the last few months. With semiconductor shortage slowly becoming a passe, vehicle availability has definitely improved but waiting period continues to remain due to high demand in higher feature rich variants," Singhania said.

Similarly, he said the CV segment also continues to witness an upswing in economic activities post monsoon.

The government's infrastructure push, new launches by OEMs and better conversion in fleet operations has kept the segment in the green, he said, adding "the passenger carrier segment is also showing good demand due to increased buying from educational institutions".

The 3W space has now also equalled 2019 sales for the first time. Electrification is also the highest in this category with e-rickshaw leading the way.

"There is a clear indication that customers are now preferring electric vehicles over internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles as ICE 3W continues to see double-digit degrowth when compared to pre-COVID levels," Singhania said.

On the outlook, FADA said , with easing of supply, the PV segment will definitely see the best ever festivities (Navratri and Diwali) in the last one decade.

"Along with this, if vehicle prices continue to remain stable and there are no more health related threats, we may see an uptick in the much awaited 2W space which has not shown the required growth since last festivals."

While Onam and Navratri fall in September, the month also has 15-day period of Shraadh, generally considered as an inauspicious period for buying vehicles, it added.

Interest rate actions by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) alone cannot lower inflation and the burden is being shared with fiscal policy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on September 8.

Sitharaman also seemingly suggested that the RBI may not have to take as much action as central banks of developed countries to bring down inflation.

"The Reserve Bank will have to synchronise. It may not synchronise as much as developed central banks," she said while speaking at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations conference on taming inflation.

"I am not prescribing anything to the Reserve Bank, I am not giving any forward direction to the central bank. But it is the truth - India's solution to handling the economy, part of which is handling inflation also, is an exercise where the fiscal policy together with monetary policy has been at work. It can't be singularly left to monetary policy, which has proved totally ineffective in many countries," Sitharaman said.

The finance minister's comments came on the back of a steep rate hike cycle by the RBI, with its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) having hiked the repo rate by a massive 140 basis points to 5.4 percent in the last four months to fight elevated inflation.

India's Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation eased to a five-month low of 6.71 percent in July. However, it has spent seven straight months outside the RBI's 2-6 percent tolerance range. The central bank is only two months away from failure, which occurs when the average inflation stays beyond the tolerance range for three consecutive quarters. Moreover, inflation has been above the medium-term target of 4 percent for 34 consecutive months.

In the event of a failure, the RBI must submit a report to the government detailing the reasons for the failure, the steps it plans to take to revert inflation to the target, and the time it thinks it would take.

Economists see another rate hike by the MPC at its next meeting later this month, with a terminal repo rate of around 6 percent expected to be reached by the end of 2022.

In her speech today, the finance minster said the Indian experience over the last couple of years had shown that the monetary policy, while key, was not enough to reduce inflation.

"India's experience in handling inflation depends so much on so many different factors. The central bank, its instruments, its interest rate management form a very critical part of it, but it cannot be the one and only one," she said.

The RBI has been cognisant of the role played by the government. On August 5, Governor Shaktikanta Das had said in his statement while announcing the MPC's decision that the government's supply-side interventions were expected to further bring down edible oil prices.

More broadly, external member Ashima Goyal noted in the minutes of the August 3-5 meeting that "coordinated fiscal and monetary policy action to reduce inflation while maintaining adequate demand has worked well".

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Fitch Group unit CreditSights said it had discovered calculation errors in its recent debt report on two power and transmission companies controlled by India's richest person, Gautam Adani, following a conversation with the management.

CreditSights's report late last month calling the conglomerate "deeply overleveraged" and flagging other risks had sent shares of many Adani companies down.

The debt research firm said in a report dated Sept. 7 that it had spoken with Adani Group's finance and other executives and reconciled some figures for Adani Transmission and Adani Power.

"Management views that the group's leverage is at manageable levels, and that its expansion plans have not been mainly debt funded," CreditSights said about the group that has announced deals worth billions of dollars this year alone.

For Adani Transmission, CreditSights corrected its earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (EBITDA), or core profit, estimate to 52 billion rupees ($652.45 million) from 42 billion rupees earlier. For Adani Power, it corrected its gross debt estimate to 489 billion rupees from 582 billion rupees.

It did not give the period for the estimates.

"These corrections did not change our investment recommendations," CreditSights said, adding that it, however, did not have formal recommendations on the two power and transmission companies.

The combined market value of the Adani Group's seven publicly traded companies - flagship Adani Enterprises, Adani Wilmar, Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission, Adani Total Gas and Adani Power - has increased about tenfold in the past three years to about $251 billion.

($1 = 79.7000 Indian rupees)

Ecuador reached a preliminary agreement with indigenous groups to declare a temporary moratorium on 16 oil blocks, Energy and Mining Minister Xavier Vera said on Wednesday, a turning point in negotiations aimed at staving off renewed street protests.

President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative ex-banker, opened a 90-day dialogue in July to hash out implementation of a deal, ending more than two weeks of indigenous protests against his economic and environmental agenda.

The demonstrations left at least eight people dead and severely impacted the oil industry. The protests forced price cuts to gasoline and diesel, and enactment of fertilizer subsidies and other measures the government says will cost $600 million.

Indigenous groups are demanding a moratorium on oil and resource extraction and for current concessions to be declared null. Lasso has agreed to suspend approvals for new projects in ancestral indigenous territory, environmentally-protected areas and archaeological zones.

"As the state we are showing that we are conceding to the request," Energy Minister Vera told reporters.

The moratorium will affect blocks in the south, where there are no exploration and production operations, and will be in place until a law establishes free and informed prior consultation, Vera said.

The government will also not grant any further mining concessions until the law for prior consultation has been approved, Vera said, expecting that in the next 12 months.

Exports from Ecuador's two large-scale gold and copper mines are quickly making the sector one of the country's most fiscally important. Ecuador expects mineral sales of at least $2.8 billion this year.

"Our position is no to mining, that is the starting point and from there we'll see the government's proposal" said Gilberto Talahua, president of an indigenous group from Bolivar province. Bolivar is home to the Curipamba copper project, set to become Ecuador's third major mine.

The agreements regarding oil and mining will be signed on Friday, as will deals on advancing productivity and fuel subsidies, the government said.

Indigenous leaders were not immediately available to comment on the preliminary deals laid out by Vera.

The only deal signed so far is on debt forgiveness for small-scale farmers, with some indigenous leaders threatening to abandon negotiations if progress is not made more quickly.

"We might not have another option but renewed presence in the streets," negotiator Blanca Chancoso, ex-president of the Ecuarunari indigenous organization, told Reuters.

"The strike hasn't ended for us … We hope (negotiations) won't just be a waste."

Other areas up for discussion in the talks set to last until mid-October, include price controls on more than 40 basic products.

The government says it is engaging with all protester demands as Lasso looks to reach agreements with indigenous groups.

Former Energy Minister Fernando Santos told Reuters, however, he was not so sure a successful deal could be reached.

"The government is weak and President Lasso is very proud. He won't cede even by accident to indigenous demands, and Mr. Iza also has a triumphal position where he wants all or nothing," Santos said, referring to indigenous leader Leonidas Iza.

"I see difficult days and no will to make agreements," Santos said, adding oil and mining could stagnate.

Lasso's office directed questions to the ministry of government, which said it could not grant Reuters an interview until later this week.

Fuel subsidies will cost about $3.8 billion this year, more than annual public budgets for health, education and security.

"In these conditions it's difficult to tilt the balance toward the negotiations," said political analyst Alfredo Espinosa, who blames Lasso's unpopularity and his disconnection from citizens.

"It's like a hostage negotiating with their captor, which is the indigenous movement."