Markets Reel From Impending Tariffs
Markets are turning jittery once again as fresh threats of tariffs including secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports
On Episode 546 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Anuj Puri, Chairman and Founder at ANAROCK as well as Jamal Mecklai, CEO at Mecklai Financial.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) The Take
(04:50) Markets reel from impending tariffs on Indian exports and macro shifts
(05:57) Gold hits fresh record high
(11:10) India’s residential real estate deals slow down but commercial is on sound footing
(24:05) Will tariff wars accelerate de-dollarisation?
(32:44) Airline cargo, passenger airline growth figures slow in February
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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Good morning, it's Wednesday, the 2nd of April and this is Govindraj Ethiraj, headquartered in Broadcasting and streaming from Mumbai, India's financial capital,
The Take
It is useful to note that while President Donald Trump's pronouncements on tariffs may have sounded wild, arbitrary and inconsistent in recent months, the 2025 National Trade Estimate report published by the US Trade Representative on Foreign Trade Barriers is anything but that. The just-out report lays out in exhaustive detail the United States' concerns on a wide range of areas and covering both tariff and non-tariff barriers.
In some way, the NTE report is a useful looking glass through which to see concerns of key trading partners and areas India's can actually work upon in the context of that oft-used term, ease of doing business. For instance, the report stated that the United States has placed India on the priority watch list due to inconsistent progress on intellectual property concerns. It highlighted the lack of specific laws for trade secret protection as a significant issue along with long waiting periods for patent grants.
Fixing these would arguably help Indian companies and patent seekers as well, at least to some extent. The report also highlights items from data localisation norms that's in the digital space to India's regulations on import of milk, pork and fish products. These imports require genetically modified fee certificates without providing a scientific or risk-based justification, the report says.
Former government officials had told me earlier that India could not and maybe would not budge on genetically modified crops like in the case of soya bean because in doing so it would kick off a firestorm amongst farmers within India and that would be only one of many firestorms the government would have to grapple with were it to allow any duty cuts on agriculture or dairy products. Bottom line, it's extremely unlikely there will be tariff reductions here. The report also points out that India's average applied most favoured nation tariff rate is about 17% overall but rises to an average of 39% on agricultural products.
Now there is a Dobi list of issues well compiled and documented and going back several years. For instance, India's price caps on essential medical devices such as coronary stents and knee implants affect what it says are US manufacturers profits and products availability. Interestingly, pricing of imported stents is an issue that Prime Minister Modi raised in an election rally in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 which is the local elections there.
Yes, it goes that far back. The government had reduced prices of cardiac stents by up to 400% and capped the prices of them here. Obviously, this is something that patients in India particularly in the poorer sections would have welcomed.
While all of this would have figured prominently in the trade discussions in recent weeks, where it could finally land is not clear at the moment particularly since India was called out once again on its high agriculture tariffs by a US government spokesperson just the day before. Now tariffs are forcing new alignments. A Reuters report out yesterday quotes China saying China, South Korea and Japan will respond jointly to the US tariffs.
South Korea has already called the statement somewhat misleading while Japan has denied a statement though admitted to the talks. The fact that such a three-way partnership is even being discussed conceptually is quite astounding. India has actually two partners in the manner of speaking.
One is the public sector of government, the other is the private sector of business. R Subramanian, Managing Director of DHL Express in India which handles a large part of India's logistics and trade movements told me on the core report that he was impressed by the innate confidence of Indian business that they could manage things, meaning tariffs and their impact. And then there is the government which has been working furiously including via visits by the Prime Minister and Trade Minister to Washington DC and multiple other ongoing official meetings.
And several steps to bring down or remove tariffs and duties ranging from motorbikes and whisky to an equalisation levy on digital advertising called Google Tax at 6% which is gone. Now the US is asking for much more as is quite evident and the gap between what is being sought and will be offered might be large. It might take effort to bridge this gap and possibly a steep price to be paid as well.
The good news is that India has made encouraging strides in responding to an external crisis of the likes we've not seen in a long time. Hopefully this one lesson will stay with us as we go past April 2nd into the next tariff crisis.
And that brings us to the top stories and themes.
The stock markets reel from impending tariff impact on both imports and exports.
Gold hits another fresh record high.
India's residential real estate deals slow down but commercial is on sound footing.
Will tariff wars accelerate de-dollarization?
And airline cargo and passenger airline growth figures slow in February after a while.
Markets Brace For Tariff Impact
Markets don't like uncertainty. While we know that this is a good point to remind ourselves that the markets are turning jittery once again ahead of tariffs and their likely impact largely because we don't know where the tariffs will precisely land but will do so in a day. And fresh threats of tariffs including secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports which could technically affect India.
Thanks to which oil prices are staying high just under $75 a barrel at around $74.60 a barrel. Remember that markets were looking up in previous weeks because oil prices were easing off among other factors. Now back on Dalal Street stocks did take a sharp dive in the first trading session of the new financial year.
The Sensex closed down 1390 points at 76,024 and the Nifty 50 was down 353 points to 23,165. Amongst the broader indices the mid-cap and small-cap indices were down by about 0.9% or just under 1%. The IT sector was hardest hit due to its exposure to the US economy and real estate stocks fell following the state of Maharashtra's upward revision of ready-deckner rates which affects property valuations according to the business standard.
Gold prices extended their record run on Tuesday with spot gold at about $3,133 during the day after hitting an all-time high of $3,148 per ounce on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Bank of America analysts were also projecting gold prices at about $3,500 an ounce in the next 18 months, up 13% from the current levels given all the reasons that you already know. What they did point out was that central banks currently hold about 10% of the reserves in gold and this could go to 30% to make their portfolios more efficient.
Bank of America said that retail investors have been increasing their exposure to gold as we know with assets under management that physically backed exchange-traded funds increasing about 4% year-to-date in Asia.
Indirect Tax is Up, Consolidation Gains
India's Gross Goods and Services Tax Collection for the month of March rose about 10% to Rs.196,000 crore or about $23 billion according to figures released by the Finance Ministry of India on Tuesday. Net GST excluding refunds rose about 7.3% to Rs.177,000 crore or Rs.1.77 trillion compared to Rs.1.63 trillion collected a month ago. Elsewhere, the consolidation of ownership or assets continues across India Inc and this one involves the government too which gained more ownership of once privately or rather fully privately owned telecom company Vodafone. Its stock price rose about 20% on Tuesday after India said it would convert a part of the firm's outstanding spectrum auction dues to equity which of course gave it a lifeline. The government's idea will increase to 49% from 23% after it converts about $4.3 billion of dues to equity. Elsewhere, the Kolkata headquartered ITC said on Monday it would acquire the pulp and paper business of Aditya Birla Real Estate for about Rs.3,500 crore or about $410 million. The acquisition would add about 480,000 tonnes per year of capacity to ITC's paper boards and speciality papers business. It said it already faces headwinds from low-priced Chinese and Indonesian supplies in global markets, weak domestic demand and an unprecedented surge in wood prices, according to Reuters.
It is of course interesting that Aditya Birla Group was holding on to the paper business, an area that it does not or did not seem to have much interest in at least from a growth and expansion point of view.
China Extends An Arm
China is willing to buy more Indian products, Beijing's Ambassador Zhu Feihong said just ahead of the US tariff announcements that would come on Wednesday. We are willing to work with the Indian side to strengthen practical cooperation in trade and other areas and to import more Indian products that are well-suited to the Chinese market, the ambassador to India was quoted as saying by China's state-run Global Times and reported by Bloomberg.
Bilateral trade between India and China stands at about $102 billion. As of last year, with India running a significant deficit, India's exports include iron ore, marine products, petroleum, vegetable oil, adding up to about $20 billion and the rest is imports, a lot of it is electronics. The ambassador's remarks were to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties and Chinese President Xi Jinping also called for stronger communication and cooperation between India and China.
He said that it was the right choice for the two nations to be partners and that he was willing to deepen coordination in major international matters and jointly safeguard peace in the border areas according to Bloomberg. Xi and Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi met on the sidelines of a BRICS summit last year and had not had a formal bilateral meeting prior to that since 2019. Among other things, there was an agreement to restart direct flights between India and China.
Earlier, China also said it was seeking to coordinate its response on US tariffs with Japan and South Korea, according to Chinese state media. Japanese and Korean officials said that there was no decision to coordinate action but they said that they discussed trade issues amidst three-way talks over the weekend, the first such dialogue in five years, according to the Wall Street Journal. A social media account run by China's state broadcaster said the three countries will strengthen dialogue on supply chain cooperation and export controls and plan to conduct speedy negotiations towards a trilateral free trade agreement.
According to that post, again quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Japan and South Korea are hoping to import some semiconductor raw materials from China while China is also interested in importing chip products from Japan and South Korea. A South Korean trade ministry spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal there were some exaggerated aspects in the Chinese social media post while Japan's state minister said at a news conference yesterday the three countries exchanged opinions on the trade environment but they did not reach any agreement on joint action against US tariffs. Nevertheless, the fact that these three countries have conferred in this manner is notable.
Residential Real Estate Slows Down, Commercial Stays Strong
Rising residential prices have slowed down the Indian housing market's bull run in the first quarter of 2025. Latest data from real estate consulting from Aniroc shows the year's first quarter saw sales dropping about 28 percent. Now this is across the top seven cities against the same period in 2024.
Mumbai metropolitan region or MMR as it's called and Pune accounted for about 51 percent of total sales with Mumbai seeing a 26 percent annual drop and Pune a 30 percent annual drop. Interestingly, Hyderabad saw a 49 percent annual drop which was the highest and Bangalore the lowest drop at about 16 percent. Meanwhile, in one of the largest commercial office space rental deals in Pune, Citicorp has leased about 770,000 square feet of office space in a deal that spans about 10 years and is estimated at about 1,096 crore rupees.
And elsewhere in residential, Godrej properties has revealed that they sold 275 homes for more than 2,000 crore rupees in its new housing project called Godrej Riverine in Noida in Uttar Pradesh which is spread about six and a half acres. Now back to commercial space. The big news is the sheer demand for commercial space thanks also to global capability centres who are expanding furiously in India.
The figure is 80 million square feet and more. I reached out to Anuj Puri, chairman of Anirock Consulting and I began by asking him how he was seeing the real estate market right now both commercial and residential and more importantly his outlook for the months ahead.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Anuj Puri: It is true that since COVID you know started we've seen the cycle really strengthen up from the beginning of 2020 nearly coming up to five years we've seen pretty decent increase both in terms of the supply for residential and in terms of the absorption of the sale for residential. As a consequence of this the unsold inventory has come down to a record low. So the cycle over the last five years has been very decent.
What we have seen having said that in January to March 2025 quarter if you were to compare it to January to March 2024 quarter that the number of units that were sold were 28 percent lower than last year and you have an interesting question is that data on one side you know what is some of the colour why you know the sales have started to slow down you know how does it look like and you know hopefully as we progress with our discussion you know what is the outlook going to be for this sector.
So given I think three four things one Q1 2024 was the highest ever sale that India had witnessed in any quarter. So you know to beat that would have been a very tough job for this quarter to deliver it. So clearly you know we were coming in from a very high base that's one.
Second is when somewhere the sort of nervousness that we've seen in the last few weeks in the stock market although it seems to have arrested now you know that is getting reflected in the mood for the luxury and the ultra luxury housing sales because majority of the people who consolidating their positions in the stock market using that money to buy residential and overall sentiment that comes along if the stock market really goes down. And third is some global uncertainties about what's happening with the tariffs and just the global outlook as a result of which many of the homebuyers are not cancelling their purchase or delaying it.
As a result of which you know this quarter we've seen the sales getting pushed down. I'm hoping that much of it will be caught up in the next quarter but as far as this quarter is concerned it got pushed up. And lastly I do feel is that as the inflation starts to come under control and you are a lot more expert on the economics and the inflation part is that I do feel is that home loan rates will start to come down which are high at this stage and hopefully that will then kickstart the demand once again.
I do want to say something very quickly and briefly in the office. Well it's just I mean out of the park the ball has been hit on the demand. I mean we're just seeing a tonne of GCCs, the global capability centres coming into India and the calendar year 2024 was the best ever since independence. Nearly 80 million square feet of gross demand and why I bring this up in our session is because ultimately that also reflects that there is a huge amount of job creation happening in the top seven or eight metro cities where the GCCs are located.
So hopefully nothing fundamentally wrong. You know it is just that we're coming from a very high base of last year's first quarter and that's quite this blip that we've seen.
Govindraj Ethiraj: What could be the median growth then if assuming we are adjusting now like we adjusted in GDP most projections are six and a half percent or thereabouts not let's say eight or nine percent which we had seen in the previous year. What is the real estate sector looking like in terms of growth in the next year or two?
Anuj Puri: So to go into that, divided into two parts, one is the price rise because a lot of the viewers would want to know how we expect the price to rise over the next year or two and second is the volume sales. So on the price rise I do believe that what we've seen in the past we may not witness is that price rise will be more in line with the inflation rate so you know perhaps five to seven percent increase in the price rise over the next year or two that you receive within the residential real estate. As far as the volumes are concerned I do believe that 2024-25 as a financial year would be really where the base should be compared to and above that will be about a six to eight percent increase in the volumes that you will see.
I do also want to say one other thing over there is that this current financial year 2024-25 supply was dwarfed you know given the various challenges that we had you know for example Maharashtra elections so we lost three four months in the approval process. Similarly earlier during the financial year central elections were there as a result of which the approvals got delayed and that means that if the new supply gets delayed and does not get the approval and that's where majority of the sales really happen at the time of the launch as a result of which you know those launches sort of got delayed and hence impacted the overall volume both on the supply and the demand side so I'm hoping much of it we'll be able to catch in FY25-26 so as a result of it we'll still see a growth of six to eight percent over FY24-25 in terms of the number of units sold.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Just to come back to office space you talked about 80 million square feet of gross demand which means that this is the space that is there and has been rented or leased. Is that right or is it created?
Anuj Puri: No, this is the space that is there and has been leased. Which means more that's been constructed? So it's about the same that has been constructed so the demand and supply situation on the office side particularly in cities like Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai have been very good.
The only city that I would call out going for you know your listeners, viewers is Hyderabad. I do feel that there is an over supply situation both on the residential side and on the commercial side. Nothing wrong with the demand in that city. It's just that there is an over-supply situation in many of the micro markets within that city that is being created. As a result of which you can see in that city there will be some softening of the rentals for the office market and likewise for the residents.
Govindraj Ethiraj: I mean and sticking to the office since you brought it up you know we saw a very big deal just a couple of weeks ago with Citibank signing a thousand crore deal over of course more than a decade. Of course one is the size of the deal and the other is the length of the commitment. So are you seeing a lot of big deals like that on the horizon?
I mean even in terms of conversations that are going on?
Anuj Puri: Absolutely Gaurav and you know it is not only IT or ITS or the backing financial services you know these are consulting companies, these are manufacturing companies doing their R & D. You know a lot of them are insurance companies who are setting up their global capability centres. What is heartening to note is that India has sort of moved away from just IT or ITES services to say that you know we're now becoming the knowledge process outsourcing for the world. We become the R&D centre for the world.
That excites me Gaurav because it's no more a cost arbitrage game that they're coming into India. They're coming for talent. Talent in the quantities that they need and those quantities are not available elsewhere.
The STEM graduates that are coming out from India are far larger in numbers than what are coming out from the US. Now admittedly China does have an even larger number of students on the engineering side than in India coming out every year but India has an advantage because it's an English-speaking nation as a result of which many of the American companies are able to associate with us a lot there.
Govindraj Ethiraj: You're saying that there are big deals still in the pipeline in terms of conversations that are going on which could result in big real estate lease transactions which could obviously and will lead to jobs which is obviously good for the economy. Okay so let me come back to a slightly different point. You've put out a lot of research in the latest report as you do every month.
What are the other data points that you feel you would need as someone who is focused on this sector to let's say strengthen the quality of your observations or your outlook?
Anuj Puri: Three or four things. One is you know about job creation. How the job creation really goes because ultimately residential is dependent on how the job creation is happening.
If there are better quality jobs, more jobs, more small homes get sold. Second is the GDP data that I would look at because that shows the strength of the economy and the ability for the home buyer to be able to go out and pay. Third I would say the stock market.
Again it's more stock market is more sentimental other than in the luxury and ultra luxury where it is actually you know impacting given that many people consolidate from the stock market and invest in those but otherwise or the mid-level you know it is more sentimentally that you know we keep a track of it is that if it is stock market does have a large variation towards the negative side then we see similar sentiment on the resi as well.
And the last one I would say is a real name trust fix because that does have a huge impact on the home loans. Majority of the people do take home loans and the EMI's are a big influence on the home making decision for them.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Would you suggest people in the mid-range or the higher range where most transactions are happening in any case to hold on or go ahead as they would in 2025?
Anuj Puri: So if they are investors going or if they are speculators I would say definitely hold on because you're not going to be able to see the price rise that you may be expecting on the residential side. But if you are an end user then I would say develop a good quality product in the location that you want. I would say don't hold back as an end user please go ahead.
These are great products, great companies, and great locations. You are able to get in the choice of the apartment that you want at an early stage and hence as an end user I would encourage but as an investor I would say if you know stay back.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And if I can supplement that you're also telling people that early stage is fine. I mean when you look at at least the roster of builders their track record so far in delivering and so on.
Anuj Puri: I'm encouraged by the Real Estate Regulation Act RERA. Since the time that it has come it has a lot of teeth going and the way that it has been structured is beautiful. There is an escrow account as a home buyer your money goes into escrow and that money is largely used towards construction of the project where you bought it.
So as a result of it I'm sort of encouraged to say to the people that at the early stage you're going to get a better price and given that there is RERA it is a lot more secure than what it was when there wasn't RERA. And hence your ability to be able to get your house given that the instalments are going towards construction of your project is a lot more secure than earlier.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Anuj, pleasure speaking with you as always. Thank you so much for your time.
Anuj Puri: Thank you Govind.
Will The Rupees Rise Hold For Now And Beyond
The rupee will erase nearly all the gains it has made against the US dollar in the last few months and fall towards an historic low over the next 12 months according to a Reuters poll of 36 foreign exchange analysts. The rupee has gained about three percent in the last two months ending a five-month losing streak and also marking its largest monthly gain since November 2018 thanks of course to that reversal in foreign capital flows and a weaker dollar. Analysts in that poll have even told Reuters that the rupee would be held down by slowing economic growth and expectations that the dollar will not weaken much further in coming months and more on that shortly.
The rupee was forecast to drop about two percent to 87 rupees 18 paisa per dollar in three months and then trade at about 87 rupees 50 paisa in six months and finally declined to about 87 rupees 80 paisa by the end of March 2026. Speaking of the dollar, veteran foreign exchange analyst Jamal Meklai of Meklai financial has argued that the weak dollar will accelerate de-dollarization. De-dollarization is a natural process of stabilisation as the dollar's presence in world markets in forex transactions almost 89 percent trade invoicing about 50 percent swift payments 42 percent international debt securities 42 percent cross-border loans about 32 percent far exceeds the U.S. economy share of both global GDP which is less than 25 percent and international trade which is about 12 percent. The share of the dollar in global central bank foreign currency assets has been falling actually is down to about 59 percent from about 70 percent in 2001 and it was 85 percent in 77 1977 that is. There are several reasons for this but the important thing is that it is falling.
I reached out to Jamal Meklai and I began by asking him how he was seeing the pace of de-dollarization right now and where the Indian rupees stood in all this.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Jamal Mecklai: Like everybody you know I have been terrorised . I would say by Trump thinking about it, reading about it etc etc what I think is the good news and also terrible news at the same time is the fact that these guys do not know anything about the market. They do not know that the market is stronger than everybody right so they are going full speed ahead. We can talk later. I read an article about something called the dark enlightenment and they're these you know sort of philosophers who are talking about democracy being dead.
The Chinese model is actually the winner where people have no rights but you can build the economy right and it really seems like Trump is going in the direction he doesn't give a s*** about people's rights right. He's saying I'm going to do this. I'm going to make America the greatest thing in the world. Now the fundamental difference between China and the US and there's many great things that China has been doing from what I read but the fundamental difference is that China does not allow the market in whereas the US is as open as you can get.
So my concern is that at some point in maybe the next six months or the next two years there's going to be a major major collapse in the US right simply because these guys don't think about the market. Normally in the old days Trump would be proud about the equity market going up. It's really collapsing and hey no matter we got to do this we got to do this we got to do this right. Seemingly unaware of the fact that all of the things he's talking about are actually negative for the economy and bad for his constituents right.
But I don't know if you look every now and again at Fox News they are triumphant like this is fantastic.
Govindraj Ethiraj: I think the argument there is that this is going to be short-term pain but long-term gain.
Jamal Mecklai: Correct but my point is it's going to be so severe right because the market doesn't want to put up with this the market is the market it just takes everything and all right bye I'm going this is my main concern about what is you know happening. Now if the good news doesn't really speak as to what is going to happen to the dollar although my personal view is the dollar is going down and this is a sort of a broader picture. The good news is that India needs to think about how to make it good news for China.
They have been knocking it dead deep sea out and everybody my god where did that come from. Again I don't know this from personal experience but I've read this article which talked about digital renminbi and the amount of the volume of transactions that are flowing through there. See these guys are not letting you all know about the infrastructure there. I saw something on social media where people are able to pay with their palm. I mean they are way ahead of I mean even on the UPI type thing.
So to my mind the saving grace in this whole game is China glad we're finally beginning to think of it. We need to actually build a serious relationship there. In any case we need to know you got this big animal on the side of virtually your biggest trading partner, the biggest trading entity in the world. I mean we're not friends with them, you're a fool. So that's really where I frankly I'm thinking as I'm talking you know because everyone is like we're in a new world right.
So in terms of what is going to happen to the dollar right it's clearly as you've seen from those numbers see its unbalanced right 25 percent of the world's economy and you know 80 percent 90 percent 72 percent of everything else it can't last forever. So it is a natural trend for it to be coming down and Trump of course is making it worse because he's told everybody I don't care who you are. So whatever flexibility anybody has to move away they got to move away.
So my sense is this whole process is going to accelerate. I mean you won't see it, you know it's not like the reserves are going to go from 59 percent 49 percent right. But I mean there's this slow and steady drip drip drip drip drip. And I think most important is that people know you've got a friend and he acts terribly. Oh god what are you going to do? You start looking around, you find other people, you start working with them more, playing with them more and then you forget about this guy.
I mean except I mean he's big and fat and dangerous and violent and that is of course another.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So you've talked about this digital RMB cross-border settlement system which will be connected to 10 ASEAN countries and six Middle Eastern countries thus about 38 percent of world trade could bypass SWIFT and be settled in RMB. So is that something that's foreseeable and we're also assuming that the US will not do anything and all sort of links back to how strong will the dollar stay and for how long.
Jamal Mecklai: See it's not really about dollar strength right. I mean see we all think in terms of you know reserves and this and that ultimately trade is the play okay. And this whole thing with SWIFT I mean A it's so inefficient I mean the banks get fat on it right.
As I was in the US some years ago he gave me a $10 bill and then he said give it back and he said you've been back. Basically they just float where they make money right. They do other things too but the float is where they make money.
Now a SWIFT transaction takes three days. You know even in India I mean our UPI we've got a few experiments going with Singapore, Paris etc etc. This is all retail you know and this is not really anti-dollar because since the currency rates are even if it's in Paris you want to go to the Eiffel Tower you can pay with your GPay.
But the fact is the rate goes through the dollar. India's thing is not threatening the dollar yet. China certainly thinks the hell with you and apparently a lot of countries know I've got this somewhere. I read it. I have no independent verification but a huge number of countries are buying into this and you can imagine if there were 20 buying into it five years ago there would be 120 now.
Everybody knows that you've got to build a second game which may end up being the main game.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Thank you so much for joining me.
Airline Cargo And Passenger Growth Slows Down
On both cargo and airline passenger growth numbers are now beginning to taper off in what appears to be a sign of how things could be in the rest of the year. IATA figures say the total cargo demand measured in cargo tonne kilometres declined about 0.1 percent compared to February 24 levels which was plus 0.4 percent for international operations. This marks the first decline since mid-2023.
The International Air Transport Association or IATA represents some 340 airlines representing about 80 percent of global air traffic. It also pointed out that year-on-year comparisons are affected by the extra day in February 2024 thanks to that leap Meanwhile total passenger demand measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPK was up 2.6 percent compared to February 2024. International demand was up 5.6 percent but in January that growth number was 12.3 percent. Domestic demand fell 1.9 percent compared to February 24. The load factor was at about 82.6 percent. We need to keep a close eye on developments in North America which falls in both domestic and international traffic IATA's director general Willie Walsh said
