US Business Newsletter

December 01 - December 31, 2022

Greetings from Consulate General of India,

New York!

Welcome to the December 2022 edition of our newsletter, bringing you important policy and high-impact news.

We hope you find it useful.

India’s Upscale Housing Market Strengthens, Defying Global Trend

India’s housing market is defying the downdraft that has inflicted home sales and prices in the U.S. and most of the developed world. Affluent Indians who kept working during the pandemic but throttled back on spending are returning to the country’s housing market in force. They are driving up the volume of new home sales as well as prices, which stagnated in the years leading up to the pandemic. Sales of new residential units in India’s major cities in 2022 are on track to be the highest in at least eight years, according to Knight Frank Research. The country’s 11 large listed developers will likely sell homes worth around $8 billion in the year that ends March 31, up 25% from the previous 12-month period, estimates Crisil Ratings Ltd., a unit of S&P Global Inc.

Defense firm L3Harris Technologies Inc. on Sunday said it agreed to buy Aerojet Rocket dyne Holdings Inc. in a $4.7 billion deal that would cement L3Harris’s role as one of six prime defense contractors for the Pentagon. Aerojet is a major maker of engines used in missiles, such as the Javelin deployed in Ukraine. Its products also help power National Aeronautics and Space Administration rockets and U.S. military hypersonic systems designed to deter China’s military expansion.

Apple Makes Plans to Move Production Out of China

In recent weeks, Apple Inc. has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the supply chain that built the world’s most valuable company, say people involved in the discussions. It is telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn Technology Group. Coming after a year of events that weakened China’s status as a stable manufacturing center, the upheaval means Apple no longer feels comfortable having so much of its business tied up in one place, according to analysts and people in the Apple supply chain.

Tesla Delivers Semi Trucks to PepsiCo, Expanding Beyond Passenger Vehicles

Tesla Inc. delivered its first all-electric semitrailer trucks Thursday, December 01^st 2022 marking the company’s long-delayed expansion beyond the passenger vehicle market. Food and beverage maker PepsiCo Inc. took delivery of the Semis, five years after Elon Musk revealed the model. The Semi, originally due out in 2019, is the first new model Tesla is putting in customer hands since early 2020, when the company began delivering its Model Y crossover. A spokeswoman for the food and beverage company said PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay unit would take delivery of 15 trucks and have them in place at a Modesto, Calif., plant by the end of the year. PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay unit has teamed up with a local public-health agency to replace its diesel-powered freight equipment in Modesto with 15 Tesla semitrailer trucks, among other vehicles and equipment. The California Air Resources Board has committed to funding half of that $30.8 million overhaul.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Says Regulation Could Boost USD Coin Usage

Coinbase Global Inc. Chief Executive Brian Armstrong believes that regulation will help fuel the rise of a stablecoin backed by his exchange. On Thursday, December 01 2022, the crypto exchange waived fees for retail customers to convert tether to USD Coin. USD Coin will become “the de facto central bank digital currency” of the U.S., he said in a Friday interview. Coinbase co-founded USD Coin with Circle Internet Financial in 2018. The exchange said in a blog that it is allowing customers to convert tether to USD Coin at no cost because it wants to make it easier for users to switch to a “trusted and reputable” stablecoin after the recent crash in the crypto markets eroded customer trust.

NASA’s Artemis I Moon Mission Concludes with Orion Splashdown in the Pacific

 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Orion spacecraft returned to Earth after a nearly month long voyage that took it to orbit the moon, concluding a test flight that the agency deemed a success and helping to reinvigorate its ambitions for deep-space exploration. After facing intense heat when it hurtled through the atmosphere, the Orion crew module—a gumdrop-shaped vehicle that astronauts are expected to travel in during future missions—landed in the Pacific Ocean under parachutes at 12:40 p.m. ET on Sunday, the agency said. The splashdown was west of Baja California in Mexico. The spacecraft sped out to lunar orbit following its launch Nov. 16, traveling deep in space and back to Earth to give NASA a chance to stress its systems in flight.