Regulators will act at appropriate time to contain rupee fall: Rajan

12 Jun 2013 Evaluate

Assuring the nervous investors about the government’s move to contain the rupee fall, the finance ministry has said that it will take steps to increase foreign investment flows into the country to strengthen rupee and the regulators, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will act at appropriate time to contain the fall in domestic currency that touched a record low of 58.96 against dollar.

Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan has said, ‘we will continue to implement measures to ensure that portfolio investor inflows are enabled and encouraged and some of these measures will be announced very shortly.’ By adding further he said, in coming weeks, the finance ministry will recommend to the Cabinet policies to enhance FDI limits on number of areas, which will help not just in short-term objective of financing the CAD safely but also in the longer term objective of ensuring sustainable growth. As per Rajan, depreciation in rupee is mainly on account of outflow of FII funds from debt instruments and high trade deficit.

Further, to reduce pressure on the rupee, Rajan said, oil refining companies have agreed to spread their dollar purchases in the foreign exchange markets as much as possible. Oil marketing companies are among the biggest dollar purchasers in the currency market.

Coming together of negative factors like heavy dollar demand and slowdown in capital inflows put pressure on the rupee, which since January has depreciated by 5.5% and over 2.5% in last two trading session. The exchange-rate touched intra-day record low of 58.96 against the dollar, thereby making the struggling economy further vulnerable as imports become costlier, inflation risks rise and record high CAD worsens. Outflows from debt instruments stood at $486 million since May 1, whereas equity inflows stood at $4.16 billion, which kept portfolio inflows into India at $3.7 billion, since May 1.

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