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Commentary

ECB Rules Relaxed: RBI

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RBI has relaxed the ECB regulations in a notice posted today:

3. Henceforth, ECB up to USD 500 million per borrower per financial year would be permitted for Rupee expenditure and / or foreign currency expenditure for permissible end – uses under the Automatic Route. Accordingly, the requirement of minimum average maturity period of seven years for ECB more than USD 100 million for Rupee capital expenditure by the borrowers in the infrastructure sector has been dispensed with.

5. At present, ECB proceeds are required to be parked overseas until actual requirement in India and such proceeds can be invested in the following liquid assets (a) deposits or certificate of deposit offered by banks rated not less than AA (-) by Standard and Poor / Fitch IBCA or Aa3 by Moody’s; (b) deposits with overseas branch of an AD bank in India; and (c) Treasury bills and other monetary instruments of one year maturity having minimum rating as indicated above. It has now been decided that henceforth the borrowers will be extended the flexibility to either keep these funds off-shore as above or keep it with the overseas branches / subsidiaries of Indian banks abroad or to remit these funds to India for credit to their Rupee accounts with AD Category I banks in India, pending utilisation for permissible end-uses. However, as hitherto, the rupee funds will not be permitted to be used for investment in capital markets, real estate or for inter-corporate lending.

Plus, LIBOR premiums have been increased (since most Indian corporates can’t get a loan under current limits). This may help, if banks abroad are ok to lend to Indian corporates – and the rates abroad are starting to come down dramatically.

This is a long term thing so no immediate impact, but it’s probably a good thing. Hey, why not just float the rupee at the same time? Would do wonders today.

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