Indian GDP Decreased in USD Terms in 2012-13
Sharp fall in Indian currency against the US dollar and slower economic growth have caused India's GDP for Fiscal Year 2012-13 to shrink in US $ terms to $1.84 trillion from $1.87 trillion a year earlier. The Indian rupee has plummeted from 47.80 in 2012 to 54.30 to a US dollar in 2013, according to Business Standard. Since this report was published in Business Standard newspaper, Indian rupee has declined further against the US dollar to Rs. 59.52 today. At this exchange rate, India's GDP is down to $1.68 trillion, about $200 billion less than it was in Fiscal 2011-12.
India's economy grew by 5.0% in 2012-13, its slowest annual rate in a decade, down from 6.2% last fiscal year. In the fourth quarter ending in March, gross domestic product grew by 4.8% year-over-year, slightly higher than the previous quarter when it expanded by 4.5%, according to Indian government data.
In the January-March quarter, the manufacturing sector increased output by just 2.6%, while production in the country's mines shrank by 3.1%.
Global ratings agency Standard and Poor's warned in May that India faces at least "a one-in-three" chance of losing its prized sovereign grade rating amid new threats to economic growth and reforms. India's BBB-minus investment rating is already the lowest among BRICS and cutting it to "junk status" would raise the country's hefty borrowing costs. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) this week lowered its projection of India's GDP growth this year to 5.3%, from 5.9% earlier.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's economy continues to struggle with its annual GDP rising just 3.6% to $252 billion ($242 billion at Rs. 100 to a USD exchange rate) in fiscal 2012-13, according to Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13 estimates based on 9 months data. The country is facing militancy and energy shortages impacting its economy.
Other world economies have also slowed down. US is slowly recovering but Europe is still struggling. BRIC growth rates are also slowing. China is slowing with its workforce aging and shrinking. In India, the slow pace of reform is hurting its growth, and Brazil and Russia are struggling with slowing demand for their export commodities.
Africa has replaced Asia as the continent with most of the world's fastest growing economies, according to The Economist magazine. The top 10 fastest growing economies in the world are: Macau, Mongolia, Libya, Gambia, Angola, Bhutan, China, Timor-Leste, Iraq and Mozambique.
China and the US , the two largest economies, still continue to be the bright spots and the main locomotives of the world economy, offering hope of global economic recovery.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
India's Hyphenation: India-Pakistan or India-China?
India's Share of World's Poor Jumps as World Poverty Declines
Forget Chindia--Chimerica Will Rescue the World
World Bank on Poverty Across India
Superpoor India's Superpower Delusions
Are India and Pakistan Failed States?
India Home to World's Largest Number of Poor, Hungry and Illiterate
India Leads the World in Open Defecation
India Tops in Illiteracy and Defense Spending
Indians Poorer than sub-Saharan Africans
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| Pakistan GDP Per Capita 1990-2012 Source: World Bank |
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| Indian GDP Growth Rates 2004-2013 |
In the January-March quarter, the manufacturing sector increased output by just 2.6%, while production in the country's mines shrank by 3.1%.
Global ratings agency Standard and Poor's warned in May that India faces at least "a one-in-three" chance of losing its prized sovereign grade rating amid new threats to economic growth and reforms. India's BBB-minus investment rating is already the lowest among BRICS and cutting it to "junk status" would raise the country's hefty borrowing costs. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) this week lowered its projection of India's GDP growth this year to 5.3%, from 5.9% earlier.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's economy continues to struggle with its annual GDP rising just 3.6% to $252 billion ($242 billion at Rs. 100 to a USD exchange rate) in fiscal 2012-13, according to Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13 estimates based on 9 months data. The country is facing militancy and energy shortages impacting its economy.
Other world economies have also slowed down. US is slowly recovering but Europe is still struggling. BRIC growth rates are also slowing. China is slowing with its workforce aging and shrinking. In India, the slow pace of reform is hurting its growth, and Brazil and Russia are struggling with slowing demand for their export commodities.
Africa has replaced Asia as the continent with most of the world's fastest growing economies, according to The Economist magazine. The top 10 fastest growing economies in the world are: Macau, Mongolia, Libya, Gambia, Angola, Bhutan, China, Timor-Leste, Iraq and Mozambique.
China and the US , the two largest economies, still continue to be the bright spots and the main locomotives of the world economy, offering hope of global economic recovery.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
India's Hyphenation: India-Pakistan or India-China?
India's Share of World's Poor Jumps as World Poverty Declines
Forget Chindia--Chimerica Will Rescue the World
World Bank on Poverty Across India
Superpoor India's Superpower Delusions
Are India and Pakistan Failed States?
India Home to World's Largest Number of Poor, Hungry and Illiterate
India Leads the World in Open Defecation
India Tops in Illiteracy and Defense Spending
Indians Poorer than sub-Saharan Africans
Comments
The per capita income in Rupee term has increased from Rs. 118,085/- to Rs. 131,543/- in outgoing fiscal year as compared to last year. In dollar terms it increased from $ 1,323 to $ 1,368 in 2012-13 as compared to last year. Per Capita Income in dollar terms grew at a rate of 3.4 percent in 2012-13 as compared to 3.8 percent growth last year.
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Total population is estimated 184.35 million during the year 2012-13 however, in 2011-12 the
population was 180.71 million.
This puts total Pak GDP in US dollar terms at $242 billion at Rs 100 to a US dollar exchange rate.
http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters_13/HGHLIGHTS%202013.pdf
The prospects of a revival have only been complicated by the possible winding down of quantitative easing (QE) in America. India has been a voracious consumer of the hot money that has sloshed around the world in recent years, using it to plug its balance-of-payments gap. On June 26th the rupee hit a record low of 61 per dollar. It has been the weakest emerging-market currency in the past month. Credit-default swaps on State Bank of India, a proxy for the riskiness of India’s government debt, have risen towards the levels of a year ago. India is the riskiest big emerging economy on this measure. Indian officials have been wheeled out to utter the dreaded words: “Don’t panic.”
Rupeeasy does it
Are the officials right? An apocalyptic scenario is that equity investors and multinational firms head for the exit. They form the vast bulk of the stock of foreign capital in India. This is unlikely. India is still growing faster than most countries and plenty of outsiders remain beguiled. In April Unilever offered $5 billion to buy out minority shareholders in its Indian unit. Net outflows of equity investments have been small so far.
Foreign bondholders are far less loyal. They have withdrawn $6.5 billion since mid-May. But the stock of external debt is a lowish 21% of GDP. Providing existing equity investors and multinationals stay put, India can probably handle a debt-buyers’ strike. Foreign reserves are 1.6 times likely financing requirements in the next year (defined as the current-account deficit plus short-term debt).
And although the world has got less forgiving as the end of QE looms, India’s stability has improved in some ways since last year. The government’s one unambiguous success is the public finances. Borrowing is still high but under Palaniappan Chidambaram, the finance minister since last August, it is no longer reckless. Control of spending and cuts in subsidies of fuel should mean the overall deficit in the year to March 2014 is 7% of GDP, according to Chetan Ahya of Morgan Stanley. For a while a deficit of 10% seemed possible. At this lower level India’s ratio of debt to GDP should be stable.
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If deep reform is off the agenda, the government can still try the old approach of cranking the bureaucratic machine harder. Mr Chidambaram, once viewed as insufferable, is now praised by Mumbai’s tycoons for taking notes as they grumble about stalled projects. Since December a new committee headed by the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has tried to push forward projects tangled in red tape: Mr Singh now personally reviews the rules for digging mud near road projects, for instance. But the committee has not made a meaningful difference. On The Economist’s count, the fresh capital investment it has sanctioned (rather than discussed or delegated to other bodies) amounts to 0.4% of GDP, spread over several years....
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21580167-despite-tumbling-currency-indias-economy-has-got-more-stable-past-year
LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - Investors who wrongly called time on U.S. economic supremacy during the financial crisis are set to pay a hefty price for betting too much on the developing world, according to a top Goldman Sachs strategist.
The U.S. investment bank helped inspire a twenty-fold surge in financial investment in China, India, Russia and Brazil over the past decade, its chief economist popularising the term BRICs in a 2001 research paper.
Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, in charge of shaping the portfolios of the bank's rich private clients, has been arguing against that trend for four years, however, trying to persuade investors and colleagues they were safer sticking with the developed world.
The past six months has substantially vindicated that view. China's boom is finally wobbling under the weight of economic imbalances including an undervalued currency, and emerging stock markets are down 13 percent compared to an 11 percent rise in the U.S. S&P 500 index over the same period.
"Many investors and market commentators have been too euphoric about China over the last decade and this euphoria is finally abating. Many just followed the herd into emerging markets and over-allocated to many of the key countries," she says.
"It is easier to be part of the herd even if one is wrong, than stay apart from the herd and be right in the long run."
The net gains for U.S. stock markets may just be a taste of the reassertion of western dominance that may emerge in the next few years, Mossavar-Rahmani argues.
Structural advantages like abundant mineral wealth, positive demographics and, most importantly, inclusive, well-run political and economic institutions make the United States the best bet going forward, she says.
"(Emerging market) investors are taking on so many risks compared with the U.S. where the risk is largely cyclical rather than structural," she says.
Many of the cyclical issues affecting the U.S. such as high levels of debt, are also on their way to being resolved.
"One thing that normally puts investors off from increasing their U.S. holdings is the long term debt profile, but we think the magnitude of the work done to address this has been underappreciated by investors," she says.
WEST IS BEST
The idea that authoritarian countries are less effective than open economies like the U.S. at incentivising entrepreneurship and innovation is long accepted in academia.
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson laid out the case for doubting the emerging power of China and others in a book 'Why Nations Fail' last year, arguing poor institutions that entrench inequality will hamper a country's path to prosperity.
But this view was largely put aside by professional investors who allowed themselves to be swept up in a "mania" about the rewards up for grabs in emerging markets, especially China....
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100864810
July 8, 2013:
India’s international investment position (IIP) saw significant deterioration in the year-ended March 31, 2013. The country’s net liabilities to other countries rose by $57.8 billion to $307.8 billion over the course of the year. This caused the net IIP to worsen from a negative 14 per cent of GDP to a negative 16.7 per cent.
The International Investment Position compares what India owes to entities located overseas (liabilities) relative to what it is owed by foreign entities (assets). In recent years, India’s liabilities have been expanding while assets have stagnated.
FDI DOWN
Liabilities have soared on the back of exporters taking more short term credit, and loans and deposits flowing in from overseas. A break-up of the country’s international liabilities indicates that overseas trade credit, loans and deposits extended to India, grew by 13.8 per cent in 2012-13 from 2011-12 levels. This amounted to 18.4 per cent of GDP in March 2013, up from 16.8 per cent in 2012-13.
This was a weak year for inbound foreign direct investments, which grew only by 5.1 per cent. Portfolio investment expanded by 10.4 per cent during the year. This was mainly in the form of equity inflows.
In contrast, Indian companies remained rather cautious about investing across the border. International assets — which capture investments in foreign currency — stagnated at 24.3 per cent of GDP compared to 24.5 per cent a year ago. This was driven by the 0.8 per cent decline in the foreign exchange reserves.
Portfolio investments by Indian companies fell by 6.6 per cent, but direct investments overseas rose by 6.3 per cent. This depicts the value of the country’s direct investment abroad, portfolio investments, equity and debt security investments, trade credits, loans and reserve assets, among others, as a proportion of its cumulative economic output in a given year.
The ratio of net foreign liabilities to GDP is regarded as an indicator of default risk. This indicates that the country’s liabilities to external parties have been rising as a proportion of its economic output.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/india-owes-more-to-overseas-entities-now/article4895405.ece?ref=wl_industry-and-economy
The World Bank data also shows that Pakistan's economy is now the 23rd largest in the world in terms of PPP, up from 26th largest in 2008.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD/countries/order%3Dwbapi_data_value_2012%20wbapi_data_value%20wbapi_data_value-last?order=wbapi_data_value_2012%20wbapi_data_value%20wbapi_data_value-last&sort=desc&display=default
http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/11/is-pakistan-too-big-to-fail.html
India is considering calling on its millions of non-resident citizens to help reverse a record slide in the rupee and does not favour the idea of a global sovereign bond at this time, senior government officials told Reuters on Monday.
However, the government strongly denied having ruled out a sovereign bond issue and said in a statement that "all options are on the table".
The officials, who spoke earlier on condition of anonymity, said India was running out of options and time to revive the currency and fund a record current account deficit but equally policymakers were wary of sending any distress signals to international markets.
Issuing a global bond might send such a signal, so instead policymakers will focus on attracting funds from Indians living abroad, such as by raising deposit rates in India or issuing bonds specifically designed for them - repeating measures carried out in 1998 and 2000 to steady a weak rupee.
The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of discussing government deliberations. They were not immediately reachable for further comment.
The officials said other options included an increase in RBI policy rates and allowing select firms to raise capital overseas.
"All have agreed that it is not a time for India to issue sovereign bonds at this stage," one official said, adding that the central bank agreed with that position too.
"We do not have much options. Whatever has to be done, will be done in the next few weeks," the official said. "We have a window of only few weeks," he said.
"The government could ask banks to raise interest rates to attract an additional $15-20 billion," he said.
The news prompted the 10-year benchmark 7.16 percent, 2023 bond yield to jump 8 basis points to 8.08 percent, while the rupee ticked lower on the news that a global bond was not being considered right now.
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India has the second-largest diaspora in the world, with a community estimated at more than 25 million, the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs says.
Central bank figures show non-resident Indians (NRIs) held $58 billion in dollar deposits in India as of September 2012, plus local currency deposits worth 3 trillion rupees.
Since the rupee's rapid decline, inflows of money from NRIs have risen, the government official said. The currency traded at around 59.70 per dollar on Monday to be about a percent above its record low of 61.21 hit on July 8.
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"The rating agencies are already watching us closely, we have to manage the situation in a subtle manner," he said.
The government's first line of defence therefore would be to woo non-resident Indians, sources said.
NRIs lapped up bonds and deposits issued by India in 1998 and 2000, helping bridge massive gaps in India's funding needs. Now, with a current account deficit at a record 4.8 percent of economic output, the country needs all the funding it can get.
The government sources said India could consider raising the repo rate, the central bank's main policy rate, if the rupee falls towards 61-62 to the dollar, citing recent meetings between the government and the RBI.
The government is also considering allowing select companies such as state-run India Infrastructure Finance Co Ltd or IDFC Ltd (IDFC.NS) to raise up to $4 billion in debt abroad, they said.
The first official said state-owned banks are likely to be asked to raise funds from overseas markets to meet their capital needs.
"Even if 5-7 banks raise $1 billion each, it will help us," he said.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/07/22/india-rupee-measures-idINDEE96L0CH20130722
US investment bank Goldman Sachs on Thursday downgraded its ratings on Indian stocks, calling them underweight as the rupee continued to tumbling against the dollar and economic growth remains sluggish.
The bank said the external funding environment has also become challenging causing the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to tighten liquidity.
The bank also expected corporate earnings to grow at 5 per cent for the current fiscal year and 11 per cent for the next year, below consensus estimates.
"Recent activity data in the second quarter of 2013 has been sluggish with no signs of a pick-up in investment demand... Against a backdrop of lower growth, tighter liquidity and rising macro vulnerabilities, we downgrade India to underweight," the bank said.
"Our forecast for the dollar-rupee remains at 60 for the year but we expect continued weakness to 65 through 2016. The rupee remains inexpensive relative to our fair value estimate of dollar-rupee 65 which also suggests the currency can continue to weaken," it said.
"We even think that there is a greater probability of the RBI keeping liquidity tight even beyond 6 months, and hiking policy rates as well, rather than cutting them," it said.
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/goldman-sachs-says-indian-stocks-underweight/1/297403.html
I hate being a narcissist and an ego-maniac, but the truth is: I TOLD YOU SO.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend READING THIS ARTICLE, that I had written last month (April 2013), and THIS ARTICLE (May 2013), outlining the exact process/method/path to India’s Inevitable Economic Collapse. Needless to say, India’s GDP just took a dump + The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) insisting that it wont cut rates as there is a significant UPSIDE RISK TO INFLATION, spooking investors and resulting in a highly coordinated (Panic) sell-off.
Here’s the piece from Times of India:
Pulled down by poor performance of farm, manufacturing and mining sectors, economic growth slowed to 4.8% in the January-March quarter and fell to a decade’s low of 5% for the entire 2012-13 fiscal.
Belying hopes of further rate cuts, the Reserve Bank governor D Subbarao’s comments that there are still upsides risks to inflation spooked stock markets. Additionally, RBI’s concern about widening country’s current account deficit amid rupee falling to over 10-month lows, also put pressure.
In this realm of reality, that we all inhabit, you simply cannot have both, Economic Growth and Low Inflation at the same time. Something has to give.
So here’s what I think is gonna happen:
The market players (American Hedge Funds) are going to rob the RBI at gun-point, just like Greece, and no-one will be able to stop them. The RBI will cave, and go BOJ on everyone’s ass.
http://wallstreetfool.com/2013/05/31/indias-inevitable-economic-collapse/
Stung by the rupee hitting historic low, stock markets on Tuesday collapsed on all-round selling with the S&P BSE Sensex nosediving by 449.22 points to end below the 19,000-mark, edging India out of the trillion dollar club.
Sentiment was extremely poor on Dalal Street as the rupee plunged to record low of 61.80 against the US dollar, stoking fears of a higher current account gap as import costs surge.
The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share barometer resumed weak and continued its downslide to end at 18,733.04, a steep fall of 449.22 points or 2.34 %. In the last ten trading sessions, Sensex has fallen in nine days while yesterday has managed to settle in positive terrain.
After today's plunge and the rupee's decline, India's market capitalisation stood at Rs. 60.18 lakh crore, which translates to $989 billion at exchange rate of 60.8 versus the dollar. The rupee retreated from record lows to trade at 60.8 levels at 1710 hours.
Dipen Shah, Head of PCG Research, Kotak Securities said: "Markets ended sharply lower on the back of continuing concerns about the rupee and some disappointing results. The rupee traded at a new low and that caused concerns in market." ...
http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/WorldEconomy/Stocks-plunge-on-weak-rupee-India-out-of-trillion-dollar-club/Article1-1104190.aspx
The central bank's capital outflow restrictions came a day before the dollar spiked after U.S. jobless claims data on Thursday suggested an early end to the Fed's asset purchases.
That prospect looms over India at a time when it is suffering from a current account deficit that hit a record high of 4.8 percent of gross domestic product and an economy growing at a decade low of 5 percent.
Foreign investors have already sold a net $11.6 billion of Indian debt and equities since late May, sparking fears of continued weakness.
India's main NSE index .NSEI fell 4 percent at one point on Friday, while benchmark 10-year bond yields surged to their highest since May 2012 as prices headed for their worst week in four-and-a-half years.
UBS strategist Manik Narain said that as emerging central banks tightened policy to defend their currencies, stocks would be affected, something that is already happening in India.
"India is losing control over the currency and you are starting to see the weakness transmitting to stock markets. There could be a self-perpetuating cycle where currency weakness flushes out equity investors and that takes the rupee weaker still."
CAPITAL CONTROLS?
The RBI's new measures also included further capping the amount that companies can invest abroad.
But overseas investments from India had already been on the wane, averaging a monthly $400 million in the first half of the year from $710 million in 2012, according to DBS data.
The biggest fear is that the RBI's action could be the start of a far stronger move to restrain capital.
"The steps taken so far only target residents, but if this raises expectations that they could potentially resort to capital controls targeted at non-residents, that could have adverse near-term implications for capital flows," HSBC's Chief economist for India and ASEAN Leif Eskesen said.
"It will, therefore, be critical to tread very carefully when it comes to capital controls, to anchor expectations, and also not use it as a substitute for more appropriate and effective measures," Eskesen said in a note to clients.
RUPEE FALLS
As policy makers struggling to find a solution for the rupee's falls, investors expect more weakness ahead. Overseas investors betting via one-month offshore non-deliverable forwards quoted the rupee trading at 62.46, while onshore bets see the rupee at 62.35 within the month.
Meanwhile, a Reuters poll on Thursday showed short positions in the Indian rupee have hit the highest in two months.
At heart of India's failed defense of the rupee so far is that none of the measures unveiled so far have given markets assurance that the country can attract foreign flows in an increasingly difficult global environment.
India last month unveiled plans to further ease restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) but previous measures have had mixed results. FDI fell to $36.9 billion in the fiscal year ending in March from $46.6 billion the previous year.
This week it announced measures to attract near-term capital inflows, including by spurring state-run companies to sell debt abroad and raising funds from Indians abroad.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/16/us-india-markets-rupee-idUSBRE97F0BG20130816
The 20 biggest emerging market currencies tumbled against the US dollar on Monday with India’s rupee particularly badly hit amid mounting market turmoil in the developing world.
The rupee slumped to a fresh all-time low against the backdrop of deepening concerns over the government’s economic management. The 2.4 per cent fall to a record 63.2 to the dollar took the currency’s slump against the US dollar this year to 12 per cent.
Monday’s moves in India came alongside grim news from emerging economies and further evidence of how the US Federal Reserve’s plan to end its monetary stimulus has continued to hit stocks, bonds and currencies across the developing world.
Over the past six months, China’s heavily managed renminbi is the only significant emerging market currency to have managed to hold its ground against a resurgent dollar.
Fears over the impact of the Fed’s plans to scale down its bond purchases have been compounded by slowing economic growth and deteriorating fiscal fundamentals in many countries. Investors are particularly concerned by states with current account deficits that have been plugged by inflows of more flighty investor capital, rather than stickier foreign direct investment.
“It’s the current account deficit countries that are in the most trouble,” said Angus Halkett, a bond fund manager at Stone Harbor Investment Partners. “The market is becoming a lot choosier where it puts its money, and some countries are going to find it tough.”
Indonesia provided evidence of that on Monday as its main equities index fell by 5.6 per cent after the country’s central bank reported on Friday that its current account deficit had widened sharply in the second quarter of this year.
New numbers on Monday also showed how the growth equation is changing for emerging economies with Thailand’s economy slipping into a technical recession thanks to weak exports and sluggish domestic demand.
But India remains the biggest concern for many investors with the pessimism there driven by questions about the government’s economic management following its introduction of a number of failed measures to support the currency, some of which appear to have exacerbated the country’s problems.
Only the Brazilian real and the South African rand have recorded bigger declines than the rupee in 2013. India’s benchmark Sensex share index also fell by nearly 2 per cent while 10-year bond yields pushed above 9 per cent, their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis.
The burgeoning crisis in India has also become increasingly political with senior figures from the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party declaring on Monday that the only way out was for the government to call early elections, now due to be held by May 2014....
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e10484c4-08c5-11e3-ad07-00144feabdc0.html
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in Mumbai. The country is facing its own financial crisis. Photograph: Vivek Prakash/REUTERS
India's financial woes are rapidly approaching the critical stage. The rupee has depreciated by 44% in the past two years and hit a record low against the US dollar on Monday. The stock market is plunging, bond yields are nudging 10% and capital is flooding out of the country.
In a sense, this is a classic case of deja vu, a revisiting of the Asian crisis of 1997-98 that acted as an unheeded warning sign of what was in store for the global economy a decade later. An emerging economy exhibiting strong growth attracts the attention of foreign investors. Inward investment comes in together with hot money flows that circumvent capital controls. Capital inflows push up the exchange rate, making imports cheaper and exports dearer. The trade deficit balloons, growth slows, deep-seated structural flaws become more prominent and the hot money leaves.
The trigger for the run on the rupee has been the news from Washington that the Federal Reserve is considering scaling back - "tapering" - its bond-buying stimulus programme from next month. This has consequences for all emerging market economies: firstly, there is the fear that a reduced stimulus will mean weaker growth in the US, with a knock-on impact on exports from the developing world. Secondly, high-yielding currencies such as the rupee have benefited from a search for yield on the part of global investors. If policy is going to be tightened in the US, then the dollar becomes more attractive and the rupee less so.
But while the Indonesian rupee and the South African rand are also feeling the heat, it is India – with its large trade and budget deficits – that looks like the accident most likely to happen. On past form, emerging market crises go through three stages: in stage one, policymakers do nothing in the hope that the problem goes away. In stage two, they cobble together some panic measures, normally involving half-baked capital controls and selling of dollars in an attempt to underpin their currencies. In stage three, they either come up with a workable plan themselves or call in the IMF. India is on the cusp of stage three.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2013/aug/19/india-financial-crisis-rupee-stock-markets
At INR 65 to a US $, India's 2012-13 GDP is down to $1.54 trillion....Rs. 100.2 trillion/65.
HARI SREENIVASAN: A few years ago, there was this notion that the developing countries were going to be this new engine. And now you see the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China kind of slowing down a bit. India is growing at half the rate it was a couple of years ago. Are we waiting for larger economies to become the power, sort of the steam engine again, or can India rebound on its own?
RAGHURAM RAJAN: Well, I think everyone is looking for a new model of growth.
And I think India is going to discover that model over time. And -- and that model requires doing things a little differently, more investment, less consumption, more effective implementation of large products. I have no doubt that Indian growth will pick up from 5 percent, where it is now, is not bad. It's bad relative to the 10 percent it was growing at in some years in the past.
But going back to higher rates of growth, I think once it figures out how to do things more cleanly and better, I think it will resume that level of growth.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, a few months ago, there was this meme in the Indian press about the price of onions and how they had doubled and in some places tripled. Now the price of vegetables in markets have come down for several reasons, but, really, the bigger question is about inflation.
Consumer inflation in India is 11 percent and almost 11.25 percent this month. How does the central bank address that, especially when the poor feel inflation on food and fuel prices disproportionately hard?
RAGHURAM RAJAN: Absolutely.
I think it's a important challenge. I think, as you said, vegetable prices have come down. There's a spike. They have come down substantially since then. So, we should see some of that inflation fall off. But whether it's 9 or whether it's 11, it's still too high. We need to bring it down.
Some of it has to be done by addressing the supply constraints in the economy. That will happen over time. But we have to also ensure that, from the central bank's perspective, we send a clear signal that higher rates of inflation will not be tolerated.
I think you have to bring both sides together to get inflation down to healthy levels.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Help us understand the balance between growth and inflation. Right? On the -- there are estimates that about a million new Indians will enter the work force -- or, I should say, be of working age every month for the next 10 years.
So how does the central bank create an environment where you can actually create jobs for all those people without contributing to inflation?
RAGHURAM RAJAN: Well, the first thing is, we don't directly have an effect on growth, other than through maintaining inflation relatively low.
Over the long term, these tradeoffs are -- basically disappear. And, essentially, the best way we can keep growth going is by maintaining a low level of inflation. However, as a developing country central bank, we have additional tools to the ones that developed countries have. We can develop the system. We can ensure, for example, payments reach every part of India.
Remittances can be sent by a migrant laborer to his village back at very lost cost. That helps the village flourish, helps more reallocation of labor to places where they can be employed. That can help growth.....
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/july-dec13/rajan_12-25.html
In addition to its high per capita GDP for the South Asia region, Sri Lanka has also excelled on Human Development Index (HDI), a key indicator of social development assessed each year by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
http://www.riazhaq.com/2014/02/sri-lanka-booms-as-india-pakistan-lag.html