RBI, government not in favour of undervaluation of rupee: Raghuram Rajan

Thiruvananthapuram: Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan on February 15, said neither RBI nor the government intends to "undervalue" the rupee to pursue growth unlike countries such as China and Japan because it leads to a lot of problems over time. Inaugurating the 4th edition of MSME summit here, he said undervaluation of the domestic currency's exchange rate is "not the intent of RBI and Government of India".

Some people point out that the growth of countries like China, Japan and Korea was due to undervaluation of exchange rate and they also want India to follow the same path. He said however that there are a lot of problems with undervaluation over time, which is reflected in the situations that some of the countries find themselves today.

Pointing out that sustained undervaluation for a long period of time "was not a feasible or desirable strategy for growth", he said this was why he "firmly believes that RBI's philosophy of not focusing on the level of exchange rate.... trying to manipulate up or down...but trying instead to minimise situation of extreme volatility".

He added. "So, rate will not be a source of competitive advantage or disadvantage. We want to make reasonable, predictable, reasonably stable and let the advantage (for growth) come from capabilities of MSME's from cost effectiveness, innovations and ideas, rather than some kind of exchange rate valuation".