Greater opportunities beckon in new year

The year gone by one of glorious uncertainties and low visibility, both globally and domestically. Fear of euro-zone breakup, tepid US growth and Japanese recession made headlines. Emerging market growth forecasts came down in tandem. Central banks in advanced economies as well as many of the emerging economies continued with easy policy bias to boost growth. Even with slow global growth, oil prices spiked at the start of the year on geo-political risks, while other commodity prices remained soft.

Internally, the macro environment remained challenging. India’s official growth estimate for FY13 was lowered to around 5.8% from initial Budget estimates of 7.6%. Inflation that came down from very high levels of last year remained stubbornly sticky around 7.5%. High twin deficits and tepid growth put the currency under pressure.

The RBI refrained from cutting rates after April and, yet, exhibited an easing bias through various liquidity measures. Liquidity in the system that had eased within RBI’s comfort level due to OMOs and CRR cuts, started tightening November onwards on low government spending, wedge between deposit and credit growth, and high currency leakages. Advance Tax payments in December further worsened the overall liquidity position, though it’s likely to improve next quarter based on RBI’s efforts.

Meeting the fiscal deficit target of 5.3% of GDP seems challenging with lower revenue collections and higher subsidy expenditure.

However, sentiment has improved since mid-Sept as the government initiated reform initiatives — hiked diesel price, raised FDI limits and started financial restructuring of the power sector.

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