Date

28.02.2014
Website
www.economictimes.com
Link
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-02-28/news/47774297_1_group-
president-head-amandeep-chopra-agri-growth
El Nino will be a big negative for agriculture
sector growth: Amandeep Chopra, UTI M
ET Now eb !", !#$%, #$&%#'M I(T
In an interview with ET Now, Amandeep Chopra - Group President & Head - Fixed
Income, UTI MF, shares his outlook on treasur! "xcerpts#
ET Now: Just because agri growth does well this year is not enough case for
rejoicing because it may well be a damp squib in the following year because of the
comments that have come in from the farm commissioner as well about the
monsoon?
Amandeep hopra: )ell, to some e*tent that is true because there have been reports
that the probabilit+ of an El Nino this +ear is almost as high as ,-. and as +ou /now, El
Nino can disturb the weather patterns and monsoons in India as well& (o if we were to
have subpar monsoon, clearl+ the farm agri output will suffer and that will not onl+ have
a bearing on the overall 01', but also in terms of the consumption which clearl+ led a
fair amount of uptic/ in the 01' that we saw in the current financial +ear& (o, +es, to
some e*tent the outloo/ on monsoons will impact the outloo/ on growth&
!ythili "husnurmath: #"$ has been trying to elongate the maturity match of these
government securities% $n fact& they were trying to do switching operations% 'o will
that not go against the grain of their idea of switching operations trying to
elongate the government maturity profile?
Amandeep hopra: No, the short securities will largel+ be a stop gap arrangement 2ust
to meet an+ shortfall in case growth is far lower and revenue estimates are far lower
than what the government has estimated as of now& Clearl+ the switch is a trend which
will happen not in the current +ear, but definitel+ in the ne*t financial +ear and the switch
essentiall+ revolves more around tr+ing to bu+bac/ dated securities between one to
three +ear maturit+ and issuing $#3+ear and be+ond bonds in lieu of that& (o the short
term securities that I am referring to essentiall+ are the treasur+ bills ranging between 4$
da+s and $"! da+s 2ust to tied over, li/e I said, the month of March&
ET Now: $f you loo( at data coming out of hina& there seems to be indications
that the hinese economy is also slowing down and with the latest )!$ from
hina suggesting that it is slowing down much more than everybody anticipated&
how do you thin( this will impact recovery in the emerging mar(ets in general?
Amandeep hopra: If we loo/ at India in particular, India will gain to some e*tent from
the slowdown that +ou are seeing in China& Clearl+ with a strong 5uan and depreciating
rupee, our e*ports have pic/ed up& )e e*pect e*ports to continue the current
momentum& (o, that will be one positive& 6ur trading partners are actuall+ more on the
western side with the U( and the U7 and Europe&
(o clearl+ the+ are showing fairl+ strong signs of growth and at least some bit of
recover+ in Europe& (o that is positive for India relative to China& The other good factor I
guess which will benefit Indian fi*ed income mar/ets and econom+ in general is that with
slowing China, clearl+ the pressure on commodit+ prices which has clearl+ been a bane
of problem for India and the whole of first half of last calendar will not be there in the
hori8on and clearl+ with softening commodit+ prices, the inflation problem largel+ related
to imported inflation because of commodities is clearl+ a positive trend for India&