UK keen to promote issuance of masala bonds

With more and more masala bond issuers choosing the London bourse to trade their instruments, the UK government is keen to facilitate more such rupee-debt raising plans of domestic corporates as well as global institutions.

As many as 14 masala bonds are listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) with a combined outstanding value of Rs 12,976 crore. Last year, six such rupee-denominated bonds sold overseas issued by the European Bank of Reconstruction & Development, IFC, HDFC, NTPC etc were listed on LSE.

Moreover, the Britain is ready to help India internationalise rupee.

“We are keen to promote further issuance of masala bonds.

Britain is ready to help India internationalise the rupee and mobilise the rupee funds from foreign markets,” British deputy high commissioner in Mumbai Kumar Iyer told PTI here in an interaction.

“We are ready to restructure our policies and regulations to achieve this objective,” he said.

Iyer informed that when Prime Minister Modi visited England, "We helped HDFC and NTPC and others line up rupee bonds which have since then completed''.

“Anything that helps broader the objective of bringing capital to India, invest in India and this create jobs is important to us,” Iyer said, adding “this is needed as no single country or market can meet the growing capital requirement of a fast growing economy like India.”

The ambition of British government is not just to bring English capital to India, but also bring the global capital for growth, he said and quoted one of the British ministers who had once said that ‘Make in India, finance in the UK.’

On the rising demand for Indian assets and also the masala bonds by international investors, Iyer said increasingly investors want access to not just the pound or dollar-denominated Indian assets but also the rupee-denominated assets.

On the impact of Brexit on the Indo-British economic ties, he said, “I think it gives scope for the relationship between the two countries to be even closer,” and pointed to the fact that when his prime minister May was here last November, she began the first formal bilateral trade conversation.

He also pointed out that India was the first country outside Europe that May visited after taking over last July year after David Cameron resigned impromptu following the surprise Brexit vote in June.

“We are working very closely with the finance and commerce ministries in New Delhi. Britain’s exit from the EU gives us scope to build closer ties, to have bilateral trade agreements, we hope to take advantage of it,” he said.

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