COVID Vaccine

The government's focus on supporting the growth of the domestic pharma sector amid the pandemic couldn't have been timed better, say sector stakeholders. Last month, the government had approved a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the pharmaceutical sector, entailing an outlay of Rs 15,000 crore.

Accordingly, the agency's India logistics sector report said: "While passenger numbers for airlines are still down on a YoY basis, the start of vaccination drives in several countries globally and the Indian government allowing 80 per cent of fleet to be deployed are key positives recently."

Market insiders have cited that the commencement of the inoculation drive has raised travellers' optimism, which will not only boost air travel, but also the entire hospitality value chain. Consequently, industry players like ixigo have seen a surge in demand and search queries.

India’s vaccine drive was backed by a sophisticated system designed to be as efficient as possible. Furthermore, the comparative advantage of having the biggest vaccine production facility in the world and rich experience in mass vaccination operations against Polio and measles have surely favoured India in the fight against coronavirus.

India has started supplying broken rice to several new markets including China, Vietnam, Malaysia besides Bangladesh besides increasing the quantum to its existing markets. The price sensitive African countries have also increased their rice orders from India, as its role in maintaining global food security becomes more pronounced.

A team from Precisa Medicamentos visited the Bharat Biotech facility here last week to discuss potential export possibilities of Covaxin, India's first indigenous vaccine for Covid.

Besides, the report said the 1 million barrel per day (mb/d) production cut announced by Saudi Arabia against the combined 75,000b/d increase granted to Russia and Kazakhstan for February and March 2021 would support the prices in the coming months.

Besides, seasonal factors such as active FII inflows, abundant global and domestic liquidity as well as rising consumption trend, have investors glued to their stock holdings. Even volatility induced via profit booking is not hampering the market's up moves as every dip is seen as a buy in opportunity into the never ending bull run.

During the past week, both the BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) touched fresh all-time highs. Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities, noted that the undertone of the Indian market was upbeat during the week amid positive global cues following the progress in coronavirus vaccine.