Rising rupee: The causes and consequences

This is an article published in the online edition of the Hindu Business Line by Alok Ray, a Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. His e-mail: alokray15@yahoo.com.

The Reserve Bank of India follows a policy of managed float vis-à-vis the external value of the rupee. Till recently, it was mostly buying dollars from the market, adding to its foreign exchange reserves which have now crossed the $200-billion mark.

If the RBI did not buy dollars, the additional inflows — primarily from remittances, export of services and capital flows — would have sent the rupee spiralling in terms of dollars thanks to the forces of demand and supply. This would have made Indian goods and services more expensive relative to foreign goods and services and affected India's balance of trade.

CHANGED APPROACH

But in the last few weeks, the RBI policy seems to have changed. The rupee has been allowed to rise and is currently at a nine-year high against the dollar. One important trigger for the reversal of policy has been the concern about the rising inflation rate. An appreciation of the rupee would make imported foreign goods (such as crude oil and petroleum products) cheaper (in rupees) in India. But, conversely, the rise in the rupee would make Indian goods costlier abroad and cut into exports.

Alternatively, if the dollar price of exports is kept fixed, the corresponding rupee realisation would be less. Either way, exports would become less profitable, relative to home sales. This, it was hoped, would divert some export products to the domestic market. Consequently, the availability of goods would increase at home, pushing down prices, helping the Government tame inflation.

There is yet another way by which the recent reversal of the policy on supporting the rupee is expected to bring down inflation. Under the earlier policy of buying dollars with rupees, an equivalent amount of rupees was being put into circulation. Other things remaining the same, this would push up the inflation rate. Of course, the RBI did not let other things remain the same. Quite often, it carried out "sterilisation" operations — that is, it sold government bonds to mop up the extra money going into the hands of the public as a result of the RBI buying up dollars from the market.

But there are some problems with this policy. Borrowing more from the market with government bonds would push up the interest rate. This, in turn, would attract more funds from abroad and the RBI would have to do more sterilisation. A point may come when the public — financial institutions, in particular — may not be willing to buy more government paper.

Indications are that such a point may have been reached in India where many banks are more willing to lend to private investors and consumers in a booming economy, rather than to the government at lower rates of return. In addition, the RBI has been running out of the stock of government bonds as it has for long been a net seller of bonds to the market. Together, all these factors (perhaps) forced the RBI to change its policy of artificially keeping the value of rupee low.

THE IMPACT

What are the likely consequences of this policy change? As already explained, the rupee appreciation should exert a downward pressure on the inflation rate. The profitability of exports is going to be affected. Up to a point, exporters can absorb the loss, if the profit margin is high enough to start with. But if the appreciation in the rupee continues unabated, they will feel the pinch and exports will suffer.

Another important consideration is the exchange rate policy of competing countries. Since, at this time, the currencies of China and other East Asian countries are still virtually pegged to the dollar, suppliers from those nations will enjoy a competitive advantage over Indian exporters. For example, the dollar price of Chinese textiles in the US market will remain the same when that of competing Indian products is tending to rise. If the growth rate of our exports slows down (the average growth rate of exports was an exceptionally high 25 per cent per cent over the last 5 years), GDP growth rate would also suffer to some extent.

All Indian companies are not going to be affected the same way. If a company is both an importer and an exporter and its foreign exchange inflows and outflows largely cancel out, the rupee appreciation would affect it much less than firms that are either large net exporters or importers. Thus, the impact for the gems and jewellery sector, which imports most of the raw materials and then exports the finished product, should be much less. But many Indian software and pharmaceutical companies ( lion's share of whose revenues is fixed in dollar terms) will find their rupee revenue and profit margins under strain. Indian exporters of textiles and commodities (such as steel), who have to compete with Chinese products could find their competitive position undermined.

Indian tourists will find their foreign trips a little less expensive while the opposite would be the case for foreign travellers in India. As a result, the Indian tourism industry — especially its high-end segment — would have a negative impact.

Because of higher interest rates at home, many Indian companies have been borrowing heavily from the international markets at lower rates, especially for financing their recent acquisition drives. The resulting foreign exchange inflows are an additional factor pushing up the value of the rupee.

ECBs ATTRACTIVE

If the Indian borrowers feel that the rupee is going to appreciate even more, they would surmise that the debt servicing cost in rupees would go down. This would make External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) more attractive, even at unchanged interest rate differential. On the other hand, if they believe that the rupee is overvalued and can fall , then the balance would tip the other way.

If the RBI wants to limit the appreciation of the rupee in the interest of exporters, it has to discourage ECB. Given the higher and rising interest rates in India, it is difficult to do so, unless the RBI puts more restrictions on ECB. But the RBI is unlikely to do this. For one, the Government wants to develop Mumbai as an international centre for financial services.

To achieve that goal, the central bank will have to gradually remove restrictions on international capital flows and move towards full capital account convertibility. In fact, the last Credit Policy further increased the limit for Indians investing abroad. The RBI is hoping that the additional inflows will be offset by more outflows as a result of the raised ceiling on foreign investments by Indians. However, this is unlikely to happen given the huge interest rate differential in favour of India. To the extent companies are using ECBs to finance capacity expansion, this would also help both growth and inflation control (by removing supply constraints) in the long run.

So, the RBI has a difficult policy choice at hand. In which direction it will move will depend on which objective — inflation control, maintaining export growth or capital account convertibility — is given more importance. Policy instruments — including the exchange rate — would naturally have to adjust as the weights assigned to different objectives change over time.