Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Will financial crisis impact India growth story?

US financial crisis is definitely going to impact the India but the seriousness of this impact is what needs to be ascertained. Few factors to keep an eye on while discussing are:
1. Indian IT companies have ~30% of their revenues from financial services(source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Et_Debate/Will_financial_crisis_derail_Indias_economy/rssarticleshow/msid-3515559,curpg-1.cms)
2. Real estate sector growth story was dependent on the FII investment; credit crisis may cause the investors to convert the assets into cash thereby reducing the available funding.
3. Inflationary pressures are easing with lower commodity prices.
4. Indian banking system has been well regulated and the exposure to the credit crisis in US is minimal though there would be some indirect impacts as in UK there might be flight of capital from the local banks like ICICI with people rushing to withdraw there savings and convert it into cash.
5. Political uncertainty with elections looming next year and therefore, unwillingness of the government to take hard decisions like reducing fiscal burden by reducing subsidy on petro products and penchant for populist measures.
6. Savings rate has been robust and therefore, the banks should be flush with funds.

Given that India is largely a domestic economy with only 17% of GDP contributed by exports, the adverse impact in the short term on the IT industry should be balanced out by correct policy measures. Given that FII investment will be slow, the domestic savings should fuel the investment and to further give impetus to this growth catalyst, RBI has rightly reduced the CRR by 50 basis points. Only dark horse that remains is the political uncertainty which will keep hovering like Damocles sword till the elections are done away with. In my view India will still grow but the stock markets will continue to be underperforming for another year or so.

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