BLBG:Subbarao Says RBI Steps Will Curb Speculation in Rupee Market
Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao comments on the rupee, economic growth and shortage of money in the banking system. He was speaking at an event at Vijayawada, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, today.
On the rupee:
“Our administrative measures will curb undue speculation and will ensure that the interests of genuine customers in the foreign-exchange market are not affected. The exchange rate will improve as soon as there is better news from Europe.
‘‘The rupee is depreciating more than other currencies because we have a current account deficit and we need inflows to finance our current account deficit. Those flows have streamed out. Foreigners, who want to invest in India, are unsure, not about what is going to happen to us, but what is going to happen to the U.S.
‘‘We have taken some administrative measures to prevent speculation in the exchange rate. I was told exporters were not selling dollars because the rupee was falling and importers were booking dollars for months ahead. All that was pressuring the rupee more. In order to curb speculation, in order to ensure that there are flows in the foreign-exchange market, we took some measures. The exchange rate reflects global developments.’’
On economic growth:
‘‘We will be revisiting the growth number in our quarterly policy review. On Jan. 24 we will come out with a revised number and by all expectations that number will be lower than 7.6 percent.
On shortage in money markets:
‘‘We have said in a statement last week that we are monitoring the liquidity situation and if necessary we will institute measures to improve the liquidity.’’
To contact the reporters on this story: Anoop Agrawal in Mumbai at aagrawal8@bloomberg.net; Kartik Goyal in New Delhi at kgoyal@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net