Arun Jaitley pushes for more rate cuts

Sydney - Banks will soon be in a better position to lower 'high' interest rates after the central bank took steps to improve transmission after four rate cuts last year, Jaitley said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Sydney on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made the case for more interest rate cuts a week before India's central bank reviews policy, saying that a reduction in borrowing costs would help bolster Asia's third-biggest economy.
Banks will soon be in a better position to lower 'high' interest rates after the central bank took steps to improve transmission after four rate cuts last year, Jaitley said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Sydney on Wednesday. The government has also reduced rates on small savings programmes that compete for deposits with commercial banks.
"At this stage if rate cuts do take place it's certainly going to be helpful because you need a more efficient economy and you need a more competitive cost of capital," Jaitley said.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi embracing fiscal discipline in last month's federal budget, the focus is on whether central bank governor Raghuram Rajan will reciprocate with a rate cut to bolster an economy that is showing mixed signs of strength. Most economists in a Bloomberg survey see Rajan cutting the key rate by 25 basis points on April 5, the first monetary policy review after the budget.
Rajan said last month he would assess price gains and the budget before his next rate decision as he looks to hit a five per cent inflation target by March 2017. Consumer prices rose 5.18 per cent in February, a slower pace than estimated.
Jaitley said the economy could grow even stronger than the forecast of 7 per cent to 7.75 per cent in the next fiscal year if India had a good monsoon and global growth picked up. India faced back-to-back droughts for the first time in three decades, making life difficult for roughly 70 per cent of the nation's 1.3 billion people who live in villages.
"Hopefully if we have a better monsoon this year - India's never had three bad monsoons in the last 100 years - we could improve," Jaitley said. India's exports have fallen for a record 15 months, prompting exporters to call for a weaker currency. The rupee has strengthened 3.1 per cent in March, set for the best monthly gain in two years, after slipping 3.3 per cent in the first two months of the year.
Jaitley said the market would decide the right price for the rupee, echoing comments made earlier this month by Modi.
"There is a pressure from exports to keep it competitive, there is a pressure from politics to make it stronger," Jaitley said. "Therefore discretion is that the rupee finds its own level."
The government retained its target of bringing the budget shortfall to 3.5 per cent of the gross domestic product in the year that starts April 1, the smallest gap since 2008. The deficit will be 3.9 per cent of GDP in the current fiscal year.
Rajan had warned of higher bond yields if Modi's government strayed from the fiscal consolidation path, calling macroeconomic stability India's "single most important strength" in a time of global market turmoil. 

• India