NEW DELHI Although the Indian rupee has depreciated 8% this year and nearly 2.6% in September alone, it has breached the psychological 82 mark against the US dollar, one of those more stable currencies compared to others.
The Indian rupee has performed much better than other emerging market currencies,” Sitharaman said at a media briefing in Washington DC late on Saturday.
While the rupee has lost 9.8 percent in the calendar year 2022, it remains much more stable than the Japanese yen, which is down 22.6% against the USD year-to-date. Others such as South Korea’s won are down 17.1%, the pound sterling is down 16.6%. Euro fell 14.2%, the Philippine peso 13.6%, Taiwan dollar 13.5%. Currencies that were more stable than the INR included the Indonesian rupiah (down 8%), the Singapore dollar (down 5.4%), and the Hong Kong dollar (down 0.7%), data analyzed by Kotak Institutional Securities showed.
At the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Speaking to reporters after the accession, Sitharaman emphasized that the fundamentals of the Indian economy were strong and inflation was low compared to other parts of the world.
First, I will not see it as rupee sliding, I will see it as dollar strengthening, dollar is continuously strengthening,” he said in response to a question about the rupee weakening. All other currencies around the world are strengthening against the dollar, he said.
The rupee settled at 82.35 against the dollar on Friday, touching another record high of 82.68 last week after which the RBI may intervene. Some analysts say the central bank has spent about $100 billion over the past year to protect the rupee.
The US dollar is currently at its highest level since 2000. “In 2022 the dollar has already gained about 15 percent against the euro, more than 10 percent against the renminbi, 25 percent against the yen, and 20 percent against the sterling.
Such a sharp strengthening of the dollar in a matter of months is a huge macroeconomic shock for almost all countries due to the dollar’s dominance in international trade and financing. its implications” said Geeta Gopinath, First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and Pierre-Olivier Garrincha’s Economic Consultant and Director of Research at the IMF.
Related currency movements may raise cross-border tensions over the competition; The dominance of the dollar in international trade leads to inflation in many economies; and leads some countries to tighten policies to prevent excessive currency devaluation, which in turn harms growth,” the International Monetary Fund said in its latest report.
Along with quantitative tightening coupled with aggressive pricing of ongoing interest rate hikes in the US, geopolitically-led risk aversion is expected to continue to support the dollar. On the domestic front, pressure on India’s balance of payments has been mounting since the fourth quarter of FY22.
