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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Infosys appoints K. V. Kamath as chairman; Shibulal to be CEO

In a major top-level management restructuring, India's second largest software firm Infosys on Saturday named veteran banker K. V. Kamath as the new chairman to succeed founder N. R. Narayana Murthy, who retires in August.

The over USD 6-billion Infosys Technologies has also appointed current CEO S. Gopalakrishnan as the Executive co-Chairman and promoted COO S. D. Shibulal as CEO and MD.

Murthy, who turns 65 in August, would become Chairman Emeritus.

These appointments, effective August 21, 2011 were approved at the company's board meeting held here on Saturday.

Kamath, 63, is currently an independent director on the board of Infosys. He is the non-Executive Chairman of ICICI Bank, the country's largest private lender.

"I am very very pleased with (all) these appointments," Murthy told reporters after the board meeting.

"Kamath, Kris and Shibu will make an ideal team. I am grateful to the company for appointing me as Chairman Emeritus and providing me an opportunity to add value to the board...," he said.

Banker to now run Infy

Who is K V Kamath?

Monday, April 25, 2011

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

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The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore critiques the president's speeches attacking Republican budget plans.

And it’s a lot closer than you may think.

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.

Put that in your calendar.

It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington, D.C., right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power.

According to the IMF forecast, whoever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.

But they’re miscounting. They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates.

That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms. Exchange rates change quickly. And China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.

The comparison that really matters

The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and is rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.

Naturally, all forecasts are fallible. Time and chance happen to them all. The actual date when China surpasses the U.S. might come even earlier than the IMF predicts, or somewhat later. If the great Chinese juggernaut blows a tire, as a growing number fear it might, it could even delay things by several years. But the outcome is scarcely in doubt.

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