Government moves to stabilise rupee

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced a series of measures to attract dollar inflows to trim the widening current account deficit and stabilise the rupee after a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the nation’s economy, media reports said on Saturday.

The Economic Times said the measures include scrapping a withholding tax on masala bonds – rupee-denominated debt sold overseas – and relaxations in the overseas debt regime.

Mint said mandatory hedging conditions for infrastructure loans through the external commercial borrowing (ECB) route will be reviewed and a 20% exposure limit on investments by foreign portfolio investors in debt to a single corporate group will be removed.

The government will permit the manufacturing sector to access ECBs up to $50 million with residual maturity of one year instead of three years.

Mint quoted Jaitley saying the “government will take efforts to reduce non-essential imports”, against the backdrop of the rising trade deficit which stood at $17.4 billion in August.

Masala bonds will be exempt from withholding tax this financial year and Indian banks will be allowed to become market makers in masala bonds including by underwriting.

Finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia, economic affairs secretary Subhash Chandra Garg and RBI governor Urjit Patel were also at the meeting.

“External factors like policy decisions taken by the U.S. that is seeing the dollar strengthen, global crude prices and trade wars are impacting us despite India having strong macroeconomic fundamentals,” Jaitley said.

The rupee has fallen more than 12% so far this year. Earlier this month, Jaitley allayed fears about the fall of the rupee, saying global factors were to blame and there was no need for a knee-jerk reaction from the government.