Friday, May 28, 2010

The Myth of The Strong Rupee


You will be hard-pressed to find evidence of a persistently strong rupee in the graphic above that pits our currency against three harder ones over a long period. Indeed a USD was worth Rs11.91 on average in 1983 but about 2.6 times more so far this year. Similar story for the British Pound: you needed 17.86 rupees for every £1 twenty-seven years ago but as much as Rs47.50 on average in 2010 even though it came down quite a bit from its unreal peak of 2007. And the € was still 58% higher than its debut in 1999.

I always thought that entrepreneurs and currency speculators were worlds apart.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Banla mem tap tambour, banla mem danse! Zot mem met dife, apre zot telefon pompier (pompier de l'estrac so racord dilo fine perse malherezman !!!) Sa fer moi rapel, banne pikor pocket, zot pik ou pocket apre zot krie voler, voler, voler. Letan sa li passe deryer la Banque de Maurice, li disparet !!! Apre, banla directer la desan lor trotoir, fer ene C2P. Lagazet tape for for. Abe kot voler vous zotte ?

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

@Anonymous: c important ki nwena ene debat eklere lor tou sa ban zafer la ek c vre ki ou pa kav kont lor pliziers nu ban zurnal pu sa.

Anonymous said...

Ou fine souleve ene vre ek main issue. C sir ki nou pa pou kapav kont lor lagazet pou fer bane debat serieux dan sa pays la. Dans ene post, mo ti ekrir ki pou bizen reflesi lor ene piblikasion style "Political and Economic Wekly" kuma existe en Inde kot bane mauriciens kapav expoz bane lide sans parti pris ek kot ou ena droit de reponse lors sak lartik. Bizen aret sa zafer one-way traffic la. Dimoune bizen kapav exprim zot lide sans la frayeur. Bien sir, ou pa pou gagn droit insulte lezot dimoune freely. Pou bizen ena ene lekip solid lor editorial board. Mo croire ki ena ene dimoune ki ti anvi fer ene zafer enpe pareil, c KJ mais so projet fine divert empe. Kan ou lir so bane ecrits, ou pou trouve banne lide la. Definitivement nou pou bizen mette en place sa hard core ki mo ti koze la. Bizen osi travay avek lespri parski ena hijacking dan tou domenn aster la... Kapav weekly pou Moris, li pas pou poze, bi-monthly pou plis economik pou koumanse.

Anonymous said...

Our politicians and other so-called experts should ponder over these few words so full of meaning:
"A life which is led selfishly and closed in by narrow walls of pride and prejudice is absolutely meaningless" (KJ)

Anonymous said...

Just look at the beauty of this short extract :
"I am a Hindu and I want to remain Hindu. I try to live according to the ideals of Eastern culture. But I am no enemy of Western culture. I am alive to the beauties of the Vedas and the Upanishads but I cannot ignore the sublime message of love and brotherhood of Christ. Will I be less Hindu if I admire and respect Christianity? Will my other friends be less Christian if they admire and respect Hinduism? My conception of une entite mauricienne is therefore this: I visualize a Mauritian society where all religions, all languages and all cultures will flourish side by side, where there will be mutual respect and understanding and where there will be no room for supremacy. I want a society where instead of accentuating our points of difference, we shall explore what we have in common. I want a society where there will be a free flow of ideas and ideals. May I add that our salvation lies not in the obliteration of Indian culture or Western culture but in a fusion of them both?" Can we find people nowadays who think and act like this?

Vikramg said...

Since I have known it, the rupee has always been on a downward trend. We have to be thankful to the previous economy crisis which has dampened this trend.
Anyway, we really need to diversify our economy, to become more resilient to external factors.
If we look at our economy now, it is all based on low value products; sugar, ICT(mostly outsourced) etc. In our present state, to be viable and compete with others, we need to keep our price low, i.e a weak rupee.
It is time our leaders start looking at niche sectors and exploit them.

@Last Anonymous:
A very interesting piece. If only everyone can think like that.

akagugo said...

Kot sa-bann corbeau ki nek criyer "devaluation" couma roupie nek stabiliser - pas koz apprécier, the general trend was always downwards. I dare any newspaper to publish this graph!

Anonymous said...

Se en bon zafair ki nu gagn en lespas kot nu kapav diskit ban zafair serie concerna nu lekonomi san parti pri.
Malherezmen a Moris nu pena en zurnal diin de so nom ki vrement independent pu koz lor lekonomi et finans. Et encor pir soi nu pena asse ban competemse ki konpren la soz ekonomi soi si ena zot per pu exprim zot pu ban rezon politik

akagugo said...

I guess that someone was playing with our rupee in a bid to prove the Marshall-Lerner condition... This is the only rational reason that I have been able to dig up to justify gatopimanomics.
Now I am confident to find some ethical reasoning of practicing dissection on living beings.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Mo panse Marshall-Lerner inpe tro etrwa kom formil. Parey wadire sa gran eksper ki fer Labour perdi puvwar akoz so bann similasyons telman estra.

Sinon mo pe get sa chart la. Kom par azar kav servi li pu gayte ki ti ariv liv sterlin ek dollar kan Vishnu ek tu bann lezot dimunn ti FM. Zafer paret sanze apartir 2007. Manou ti vinn guverner BoM an 2007... Pu bizin get sa an detay pli tar.