In September 1998, Nelson Mandela wrote to speculator-cumphilanthropist George Soros asking how South Africa should deal with currency speculators like Soros himself. Writing back, Soros said that it was always futile to defend any indefensible exchange rates and instead urged the South African leader to avoid excessive short-term external debt and to maintain stringent supervision over local banks.*
We do not know whether South Africa benefited from Soros advice of non-intervention in foreign exchange markets. But, the Reserve Bank of India seems to be following a hands-off policy when it comes to dealing with the Indian rupees sharp depreciation against the US dollar since the second week of August 2011. Between August 2011 and now, the rupee has fallen by almost 20 percent against the dollar from a level of 44.74 to 53.51. On 13 December 2011, the rupee touched an intra-day low of 53.51 before settling at 53.23 at days close. The sudden depreciation has shocked many Indian companies and others engaged in foreign trade, investment, etc. Importers and companies with external debt with un-hedged exposures are caught unawares. Many Indian companies (net foreign exchange spenders) declared high exchange losses during the July-September quarterly
results. The costlier dollar (versus the rupee) has made life difficult for Indian travellers and students studying abroad.
* Source: Soros The Life and Times of A Messianic Billionaire by Michael T. Kaufman
The fear is that the exchange losses for India Inc may continue during the current quarter (October-December 2011) also. Countries, like, Switzerland and Japan are grappling with currency appreciation. But, inIndia we are facing the opposite situation of a sharp depreciation of the domestic currency against the US dollar.
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there are clear signs of inflation coming down to the RBIs comfortable level of five to six percent, RBI may not be in a position to loosen its hawkish interest rate policy. RBI has been following managed float exchange rate policy for several years. Managed float is some sort of a via media between a floating rate system and a fixed rate system. Depending on various factors, RBI tries to maintain some balance between the extremes.
to G-7 action, the yen rose to 76.25 from 83 level. The intervention worked for about three to four months. Prior to 1995, the US dollar was rising continuously against other major currencies. Discomforted by the steep appreciation of the dollar, the US government came to an understanding (at Plaza Hotel, New York) with Germany, France, Britain and Japan to arrest the overvaluation of dollar. After this accord (known as Plaza Accord), the dollar underwent a remarkable depreciation against other major currencies, in particular, yen and deutsche mark. This had given a big boost to US exports in the following years.
Conclusion
The RBI seems to be in a mood to conserve the precious foreign exchange reserves for any future eventuality in the next few years. The eurozone sovereign debt crisis is yet to unfold fully. If and when the eurozone breaks up (some experts are not completely ruling out such a possibility), India may need the official reserves if there is any further run on the rupee led by selling from the foreign institutional investors in the Indian stock market. As George Soros commented in the beginning of this article, it may not be a good idea to defend rupee which may cost the government heavily as had happened in the case of theUKs efforts to defend the pound sterling in 1992. Strictly speaking, we cannot compare India with the UK. The UK has capital account convertibility and allows free movement of capital in and out of the country. The same is not the case in India. India is following a very cautious approach when it comes to capital account convertibility. Despite the recommendations of two Tarapore committees, Indiastill has kept lot of capital controls in place in order to protect the domestic economy from external shocks of the kind the world has witnessed in the past. Due to the protected environment, it is hoped that the currency speculators may not be able to give big shocks to Indian rupee. RBI is still giving primacy to providing price stability at all costs over other policy objectives of growth and exchange rate. Until inflation shows clear signs of waning, RBI will continue with its tight money policy. It would be interesting to watch the response of the Union Government if
The prospects for inflation in the New Year depend on the following ifs. If the eurozone crashes, and oil and commodity prices, fall, inflation will continue to fall. If the rupee continues to fall, it may negate the fall in commodity prices and boost inflation. If the UPA persists with its Food Security Bill, even the downtrend in food prices may reverse in the second half of 2012. If the monsoon next year is not as good, it will fuel a further rise in food inflation. If growth continues to slow down, but cost pressures persist due to a falling rupee, we will have stagflation slowdown or stagnation with rising prices. If government revenues shrink due to the slowdown, the fiscal deficit will widen and build further inflationary pressures. Net-net: Dont assume that inflation is over. It has been weakened, but is definitely not dead or even dying.