Egypt has always valued its friendship and strong bonds with India. For centuries, the peoples of these two ancient civilisations have engaged in cultural and economic exchanges. In the modern era, our leaders Saad Zaghloul and Mahatma Gandhi struggled against colonialism in the quest for freedom and national independence.
The legacy of the firm stand that Nasser and Nehru took against violations of territorial integrity in Goa and Suez, by signing the Treaty of Friendship in 1955 and founding the NAM, reflects the synergy between both countries and sets the foundation of their dynamic and mutually beneficial partnership. Today, common aspirations bring Egypt and India even closer in the quest for prosperity in both nations.
Moreover, enhancing economic relations is an important objective that we seek to achieve. Indian investments in Egypt amount to $3 billion in petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles among others. Egypt, which has free trade agreements with Arab, African and European regions, provides a great opportunity for more Indian investments.
The Egyptian government is adopting policies to diversify the economy and achieve tangible development on the long term. New laws and regulations have been introduced to create an environment conducive to foreign investment and small and medium enterprises, while new mega projects such as the Suez Canal Area Development project are potential areas for further cooperation with India. Meanwhile, Egyptian investors are keen to benefit from the opportunities offered by important initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ and ‘Invest India’ and some have already started to inject investments in the Indian market.
Cultural exchange and people-to-people relations represent another aspect of engagement, essential to forging a long-lasting friendship. Egyptians enjoy various activities brought by the annual festival of ‘India by the Nile’, and soon Indians will get a flavour of Egyptian culture during the first festival of ‘Egypt by the Ganga’.
In countries with a large youth bulge, such as ours, cooperation in the field of modern education and technology is key to create a better future. This is also a field that we are looking forward to enhancing our cooperation with India in, particularly in light of the many cultural and social characteristics both peoples share.
The millions of young people who swarmed into Tahrir Square in January 2011 demanding social justice, and who revolted again in June 2013 asking for a more inclusive political system that upholds human rights and freedoms and preserves the Egyptian national identity, have forged the path for Egypt’s transition to democracy.
During the past three years the Egyptian people have successfully adopted a new constitution, elected a new president and House of Representatives. They are determined to establish a more democratic system that upholds the principles of equality, citizenship, human rights and freedoms and that ensures a life with dignity for all.
Egypt has also been at the forefront in the fight against terrorism, which has taken advantage of the security vacuum in some countries in the region due to ongoing conflicts and crises. Al Azhar institution is a beacon of moderate Islam and plays a key role in rectifying the religious discourse in order to reflect the real essence and virtues of Islam, which calls for tolerance, peace and acceptance of the other.
Reaching political solutions to the ongoing crises in Syria, Libya, and Yemen is of paramount importance and is vital to bring an end to the bloodshed and the human suffering of their peoples and preserve the unity and territorial integrity of these countries.
India as a strategic partner Egypt looks forward to maintaining international peace and create a secure and better future for our peoples and the next generations.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.