Saturday, October 18, 2008

The financial crisis - Professor N. Natarajan's view from India

Just a note.

One element in the discussion on the financial crisis has been the role of, and impact on, Asia. However, there has been very limited reporting on Asian impacts. For that reason I found Professor N. Natarajan's perspective on India interesting. See Declare Emergency In India for further details.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you. The good Professor will be delighted that someone from Australia was interested!

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Ramana. I would be interested in your own perspective as to Indian developments. I know far too little!

Anonymous said...

Jim, developments in India in the present stage is still evolving. There appears to be just too many things happening at the same time taking the political establishment's sight away from what needs to be done.

My own reading on the economic front is that we will not suffer too much. The construction industry has already reached its nadir and has now stabilized. There has not been too much of credit led consumption and so that market, be it for housing or for automobiles or consumer durables does not seem to have been affected.

Inflationary pressures have eased off and unlike China, India has a local market for Indian goods and with the peak consumption season now well on its way, indications are that we will survive more successfully.

The stock markets have been affected but this is mostly Foreign Institutional Investors pulling out of equity to encash their options. The local retail investors have not really been affected very much though some high flying individuals have lost up to 50% in equity linked investment plans. I reckon that from this week onwards, some stability in the bourses should be seen.

The Reserve Bank and the Finance Ministry have been on the ball and so far at least no major problems have arisen, and I do not foresee any either.

Incidentally, Prof. Natarajan has reacted to the comment that he was protectionist! I have posted his response in my blog.

Jim Belshaw said...

Thanks very much for this, Ramana. This is broadly what I thought - I just wasn't sure. I will read the Professor's latest thoughts with interest.