Three steps forward
Fireworks were going off all over India last month as the country celebrated 50 years of independence. Financiers had something else to be pleased about: this has been an excellent year for India's capital market and its financial services industry. There has been a mini-boom on Mumbai's stock exchange (still generally known as the Bombay Stock Exchange). Its Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex), which tracks the daily closing prices of shares in 30 actively-traded corporations representing major industries, almost matched the record high reached in September 1994. Monthly inflows of foreign investment have reached a 24-month high, and there has been an explosion in sales of domestic commercial paper. A wide range of leading Indian companies have been prompted to tap the international capital markets for the first time.
Three important changes in the Indian economy this year are behind these developments. First, in February, came a budget for growth which cut taxes and relaxed restrictions on investment. "Perhaps the budget did not answer some of India's long-term problems," says Sanjeev Mohta, head of research at HSBC Investment Banking in Mumbai. "But it sent out the important signal that economics and politics are finally being divorced."