Clueless RBI opens flood gates

The rise of the mighty Rupee against a weak dollar has forced RBI to relax its currency regulations. It goes with the usual refrain - “one more step towards full capital account convertibility”. Gee, making a virtue out of necessity? Not so nice, Guv…! How many more steps left? Story behind the story is RBI just woke up and realized that they've lost control of their own industry. Now they're desperately scrambling to get back on their feet. Left with not many options, it opened the floodgates wider praying that some of the incoming dollars may flow back too. Now, know your limits –

- Individuals can remit up to $200,000 against $100,000
- Companies allowed to invest overseas up to 400% of net worth overseas against 300% till now

- Partnership firms also allowed to invest overseas 400% of net worth
- Ceiling on portfolio investments by companies raised to 50% of net worth from 35%
- The requirement of 10% reciprocal shareholding in listed Indian companies done away with for overseas portfolio investment
- Companies can prepay ECBs up to $500 million against $400 million now
- Mutual funds allowed to invest an aggregate of $5 billion overseas against $4 billion now

Will it cause a dent ? I doubt. There are not many parking bays available for the greenback than emerging markets. No other market in the world is yielding returns as do emerging markets (EM) like India. China and Brazil have become way too overstretched. Developed markets have been consistent underperformers. That leaves the dollar to leave Indian shores only when Indian companies begin repaying or foreclosing their ECB borrowings made earlier. That’s wheels-within-wheels scenario since prepayments shall be triggered only if there are significant dollar earnings from exports, which is too much to ask when every dollar of export is fetching less and less Rupees. Add to that the Fed rate cuts. The recent 50 bps rate cut by the Fed on September 18 has only accelerated the inflows - FII reacted by increasing their investments in India with $1.54 billion of investments in just 3 days between September 19-21. RBI may use its sponge to mop up dollars, but in July alone, it bought back $11.42 billion.

How much more can it suck in? And is it advisable? Well, I’ve dealt with that already.

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