Future Retail on 'shoppers' list

Traders and investors seem to be shopping into shopping stocks today morning! Al retail stocks, Trent, Shoppers Stop and Future Retail are up. The leader of the pack is Future Retail which is up over 9% at Rs.82 levels and this is with an intra day high at Rs.84.30. Yesterday, the stock had hit a new 52-week low at Rs.63.30.

Retailing stocks are up today after the Trade Minister, Anand Sharma, yesterday announced morer sops for multi brand retail. The CCEA approved “dilution” of certain safeguards including relaxing the 30% sourcing norm and dropping the mandatory 50%  condition for backend infrastructure investment which were approved by Parliament while allowing 49% FDI in multibrand retail announced last year. Under the 30% sourcing norm, medium scale industries with total investment not exceeding $2 million would also be made eligible for sourcing of manufactured/processed to products. 

The Cabinet also approved increasing the number of cities to be covered under the MBRT policy by amending the clause of permitting cities or States with less than 10 lakh population also to open front end stores with the permission of the States or Union Territories.  These sops have spurred hopes that overseas retailers will come knocking to India and we could probably hear more news of tie-ups and new ventures.