RBI has taken baby steps to smoothen the volatility in currency market. It will have to take a giant leap forward (by hiking interest rates and/or dipping into forex reserves) to halt the weakening of the rupee
The measures from the central bank come amid heightened volatility in the foreign exchange market, with the Indian rupee’s exchange rate against the dollar hitting fresh all-time lows nearly every other day.
The rupee will not fall significantly from current levels as a bunch of inflows are expected to support it, said Arvind Narayanan of DBS Bank.
As the prices of sensitive products are regulated, the Rupee selling prices of these remain either unchanged or increase marginally, thereby increasing the gross under-recovery burden of OMCs. Weakening rupee reverses under-recovery gains for OMCs says ICRA in the study.
NS Venkatesh of IDBI Bank told CNBC-TV18 that the rupee was expected to range between 57.80-58.30 levels. He added that a minor pullback was expected in today's trading due to dollar selling by exporters and remittances from NRIs.
India's largest passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki is working on a new strategy to step up its exports, a move promoted to counter the weakening rupee.
Weakening rupee against US dollar has come as a severe blow to Punjab’s secondary steel market, with industry cutting down output by whopping 30% in the wake of rising cost of imported raw material.