“The Indian economy is currently stuck in an unenviable cycle,” says Deepak Lalwani of consultancy Lalcap. GDP growth in the year to March was just 5%, the lowest rate in a decade. Under normal circumstances, this would spur the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ease monetary policy and stimulate growth – but at present, policymakers don’t have that option.
A yawning current-account deficit – 4.8% of GDP last year – and fickle capital inflows from foreign investors have sent the currency tumbling to a record low below 61 rupees per dollar, with no sign yet that the bottom has been reached. Under these circumstances, restoring macroeconomic stability has become the “primary concern”, say analysts at Standard Chartered. The RBI is likely to maintain a relatively tight monetary policy in an attempt to stop the rupee’s slide.
Will higher interest rates be enough to put a floor under the currency? Probably not – the central bank itself acknowledges that its policies “will, at best, provide breathing space” for the government to act more decisively, says Standard Chartered. To this end a range of other measures are being considered, notes James Crabtree in the FT, including “attracting foreign inflows through instruments targeted at ‘non-resident’ Indians living abroad, or dollardebt issues from state-backed firms”.
Meanwhile, finance minister P Chidambaram has also appealed to Indian consumers to contain their “passion for gold”, arguing that excessive gold imports are a significant factor in the ballooning current-account deficit.
However, these steps probably do not go far enough. After all, the rupee’s weakness is a symptom of the structural problems that face the economy, say analysts at DBS; such problems “require the reform process to be cranked up yet again” to attract increased long-term foreign investment, rather than short-term inflows.
Such reforms have regularly been delayed, but “India acts best in a crisis”, says Lalwani, so the rupee’s current woes may well be what’s needed to push the country forward. Nonetheless, policymakers – including former IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan, who will take over as RBI governor next month – have a good deal of work to do.