ADVERTISEMENT

Lifting cap on FII holdings in government securities can net $40 billion: StanChart

At a time when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government are working overtime to boost dollar inflows, a Standard Chartered report said on Thursday that lifting the cap on foreign institutional investor (FII) exposure in government bonds can net in around $40 billion over the next one year.

The removal of restriction in FII investment in government securities (G-secs) will make India eligible for inclusion in the JP Morgan's government bonds-emerging markets index, a popular index among emerging market investors, StanChart said in the report.

"If India were included into this index, we would expect it to have a 10 per cent index weight. We think this would attract $20-40 billion of foreign inflows to Government securities over a year, and result in foreign outflows from Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand and Hungary," it said.

Currently, the government has capped FII exposure to government securities at $30 billion, which was half of that till last fiscal year (FY13).

The report comes at a time when India is grappling with its high current account deficit.

The country's high current account deficit is being blamed for the plight of rupee, which, till the new RBI Governor took charge last week, had lost nearly 28 per cent of its value this fiscal year. The rupee has clawed back a good 7 per cent in five trading sessions since September 4.

The report said the inclusion of India into this global index will encourage Government bond buying by a wide variety of investors, including those with a long-term investment horizon. At present a whopping 98 per cent of outstanding G-Secs are held by domestic investors, mostly banks and insurers.

India's inclusion in the index will ease market concerns over funding the trade gap, it said.

"We believe index inclusion would be a significant step in both attracting sustainable foreign debt inflows and deepening the G-Sec market."

"Widening the investor base to include those with risk-return preferences different from domestic investors would deepen the Government securities market," the report said.