Arvind's Newsletter -Weekend edition

As mentioned last week, my newsletter comes out 5 days a week from Tuesday to Saturday.

1.India’s foreign exchange reserves hit 20 month high, jump $9.112 bn to $615.971 bn

Amid heavy inflows in Indian debt and equity markets, India's foreign exchange reserves rose for the fifth straight week, reaching an over 20-month high of $615.97 billion as of December 15, according to the data released by the Reserve Bank of India.

Meanwhile, the rupee hovered between 82.9400 and 83.4050 against the dollar during the period coinciding with the week forex reserves data pertains. The Indian currency made its biggest weekly gain since Aug. 25. The currency settled at 83.14 on Friday, and posted its biggest weekly loss in over two months.

2.Luxury renaissance: All that made 2023 a year of opulence and achievement, reported Business Standard.

According to “The State of Fashion 2024” report by Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company, global luxury brands believe India is among the most promising destinations for luxury consumption in the coming year. 

“While the biggest fashion markets are seeing only tepid signs of renewed growth, others may be more compelling. When asked about the countries or regions they believe will be the most promising in the year ahead compared to 2023 in the survey conducted in September, executives cited the Middle East (51 per cent net intent), India (39 per cent net intent) and Asia Pacific (34 per cent net intent),” the report said.

India is the destination everybody is eyeing. This year, Italian menswear brand Brioni and Christian Louboutin (in partnership with Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd) were among those that announced their entry into the country. Next year, French departmental store Galeries Lafayette will begin operations in Mumbai, before opening in Delhi in 2025.

The demand for luxurious homes also soared this year. In Gurugram, DLF sold a 10,000-plus sq ft apartment for a whopping 100 crore.Real estate consultancy Anarock said ultra-luxury homes priced upwards of Rs 40 crore recorded a 247 per cent year-on-year sales value surge in 2023.

Of these, 58 were sold in seven cities for a total of about Rs 4,063 crore. Compare that to the whole of 2022, when 13 ultra-luxury homes were sold for a total sales value of about Rs 1,170 crore.

3.The White House is increasingly considering using $300 billion in Russian central-bank assets held in the West towards Ukraine’s war effort. 

Senior U.S. and European officials said the Biden administration’s shift — it had previously argued such a move was illegal — comes amid waning backing in Western capitals for Kyiv, The New York Times reported. Critics of such a move argue it would undermine the standing of Western central banks. “Whatever reputational damage this transfer of assets might cause for the West, it is vanishingly small in comparison with the reputational damage that the West will suffer if Russia succeeds in conquering Ukraine,” the veteran Russia journalist Anne Applebaum wrote in The Atlantic. “What are we waiting for?”

4.Montpellier in France became the latest European city to offer free public transport reported the Guardian. Residents can, with a pass, take public trams and buses without payment, although visitors still pay. Tallinn in Estonia and all of Luxembourg have the same policy. It’s part of a wider global effort to promote public transport and reduce private car use. 

In New York, infrastructure is being installed for Manhattan’s congestion charge program, which begins in May and will require drivers to pay up to $36. Similar systems are in place elsewhere, notably London, and are highly effective at reducing congestion, pollution, and carbon emissions, a transport analyst told Politico: “All the other policies including transitioning to electric fleet and building more transit pale in comparison.”

5.Hyperloop One is shutting down

The company which became well known for its idea of shooting people hundreds of miles an hour through a vacuum has shut down.

The aim of Hyperloop One, based on an idea by Elon Musk, was to dramatically cut journey times.It has previously received backing from Virgin founder Richard Branson, but he pulled out last year.

The firm will lay off it its remaining staff by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg.

India was also exploring the feasibility of the technology but November this year Niti Aayog’s Member V K Saraswat who was leading a committee evaluating the technology mentioned to PTI that, India is unlikely to go in for hyperloop technology for ultra high-speed trains in the near future as the technology is at a 'very low level' of maturity and may not be economically viable.

6.FT Person of the Year: Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen of Novo Nordisk

Everything about Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is understated. The chief executive of Danish drugs group Novo Nordisk grew up on a pig farm in Jutland and from an early age was expected to muck out the animals.

While most of his rivals take private jets to their appointments, he waits for commercial connections. Tall, thin and thoughtful, Jørgensen is far from the conventional image of a swashbuckling, dealmaking CEO: he started his career as an economist in the healthcare and planning department.

But in his low-key way, Jørgensen is pioneering a commercial innovation that could have a profound impact not just on healthcare, but on societies, on public finances and on our relationship with food.

Novo Nordisk is the company behind the first game-changing treatments that are used for obesity: Wegovy and Ozempic. Before these drugs, the only truly effective treatment was bariatric surgery, which is expensive and sometimes risky. Now there is a simple injection.

A safe and readily available treatment for obesity could have a huge impact on human health, while also generating savings on treating other diseases. Obesity will affect an estimated 1bn people by 2030 — with all the associated impact that has on rates of diabetes, heart disease and mobility. In the US alone, the economy loses up to $30bn a year in sick days due to the condition, according to research from Cornell.

And it is not just obesity: there is now good evidence to suggest the company’s drugs could also help prevent heart attacks and there is even some hope they could be used to treat Alzheimer’s by reducing inflammation in the brain.

The Novo Nordisk drugs have been several decades in the works and Wegovy was first approved in the US in 2021. But this is the year that the momentum behind them has become unstoppable, when it became clear that they are more than just a celebrity fad.

Barclays forecasts sales of Wegovy, which is used for obesity, to hit $4.2bn this year and $7.3bn next, with Ozempic, designed for diabetes but often prescribed off-label for obesity, predicted to hit $13.3bn in 2023 and $16.5bn in 2024.

The success has turbocharged Novo Nordisk: with little fanfare, it has become the most valuable company in Europe, overtaking luxury group LVMH, maker of Louis Vuitton and Moët & Chandon.

For his role conducting this model of patient, persistent but transformational innovation, the Financial Times has chosen Jørgensen as its Person of the Year.