In a move to gather more funds, the government may open up the Indian debt markets, reports CNBC-TV18's Aakansha Sethi.
After allowing foreign institutional investors (FIIs) access to Indian equity markets in mutual funds, the finance ministry is now looking at allowing QFIs or qualified financial investors to invest in debt markets as well. It's thinking of allowing QFIs access to corporate bonds, sovereign bonds as well as long-term infra bonds.
The FII caps for these have been revised twice in the last fiscal.
For GSecs it stands at USD 15 billion and for corporate it stands at USD 20 billion and for long term infra bonds at USD 25 billion.
Now the finance ministry is thinking to increase foreign inflows further. So QFIs who have an interest in this may also be allowed to invest in Indian debt markets.
An announcement to this effect may be presented in this Budget itself. It remains to be seen how the finance ministry works out the contours for this.
