India “Surprises” 51 Out Of 52 “Experts”, Slashes Rates More Than Expected As Easing Bonanza Continues
Late last month, we asked how long it would be before the RBI hit back in the wake of China’s yuan deval.
The Indian government’s chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian had just told ET Now television that India may need to “respond” to China’s monetary policy stance, and also hinted at further export weakness. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines: more shots were about to the be fired in the ongoing global currency wars.
Reinforcing that contention was the following from Deutsche Bank:
India’s export sector continues to be under pressure, with merchandise exports contracting yet again in July by 10.3%yoy. The weakness in India’s exports is striking (this is the eighth consecutive month of decline), not only in terms of past trend, but also from a cross country perspective. Indeed, India’s exports performance has been the weakest in the region thus far in 2015. In the first quarter of the current fiscal year (April-June’15), Indian exports have contracted by 17%yoy, one of the sharpest declines on record. The main reason for such a weak Indian export performance can be attributed to the sharp decline in oil exports (down 51%yoy between April-June’15), which constitute 18% of total exports.
Another factor that could likely explain the weak performance of exports is the probable overvaluation of the rupee. As per RBI’s 36-country trade based real effective exchange rate, rupee remains overvalued at this juncture and this could be impacting exports to some extent, in our view.
Currency competitiveness is an important factor in influencing exports performance, but global demand is even more important, in our view, to support exports momentum. As can be seen from the chart [below], global demand remains soft at this stage which continues to be a key hurdle for exports momentum to gain traction.
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