ET2002 ⁽¹⁵⁾

RBI foreign exchange reserves now exceed $60 billion. Must it keep accumulating or there are other alternatives? Read on for some answers. Economic Times, August 28, 2002 The foreign exchange reserves held by the Reserve Bank of India have crossed the $60-billion mark. They are now sufficient to cover 10 months worth of imports of goods and services. Since we have almost never accumulated reserves of this magnitude, they raise some important questions. What led to this accumulation? Is it desirable? If yes, why and how much more reserves must we accumulate? If not, why not and what is the best way to arrest the process? Answers to these questions are technical but can be understood provided one is willing to work through some mundane balance-of-payments statistics. These statistics relate to a country’s international transactions such as imports, exports, remittances, foreign investment and other capital flows that give rise to inflows and outflows of foreign exchange (dollars, for short). Therefore, consider the accompanying table, which offers a crude summary of India’s balance of payments during the year 2001-02. In that…

(Full text and external link unavailable) Are the calls for raising aid flows to 0.7 percent of the industrial countries' GDP grounded in proper analysis? Have those making the calls offered a roadmap of how they can use this larger amount effectively to promote the Millennium Development Goals?

(Full text and external link unavailable) Under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), developed countries grant one-way tariff preferences to developing countries. But the experience with these preferences has been even less encouraging than that with aid.

(Full text and external link unavailable) Skeptics say that exports have not responded to trade liberalization. Are they right? And even if they are wrong, why has the response in India been more muted than in China? Here is one hypothesis.

(Full text and external link unavailable) India is now the top ranking user of anti-dumping. The Economic Times asked three specialists to write on "Should anti-dumping be dumped?" My take: This is a no-brainer. WTO members should jointly agree to outlaw the use of this self-destructive weapon. But should they fail to do so, countries should unilaterally discard it from their arsenals.