Gilts are bland. But even Indian bonds aren’t spicy?

The one-two punch of rising US interest rates and a strengthening dollar is making investors crave spicy yields. Markets were in turmoil last week when 10-year UK gilts struggled to find takers even at 4.5% — and only calmed down when the Bank of England stepped in as a buyer. However, it isn’t just British fare that’s getting passed up for being too bland. Look at a large emerging economy like India, which has tried for three years to get asset managers to commit to its $1 trillion government bond market. But they’re stalling. Why aren’t 7%-plus yields hot enough for them?
FTSE Russell said that it would continue to keep Indian government bonds on its watch list for possible inclusion in its emerging markets debt index until March 2023, when the next assessment is due. Separately, Reuters has reported that India’s much-desired entry into a similar benchmark maintained by JPMorgan Chase & Co. may also get pushed out to next year. A decision is expected in the coming days. (Bloomberg LP is the parent of Bloomberg Index Services Ltd., which administers indexes that compete with those from other service providers.)
Foreigners own just $17.8 billion, or 2%, of Indian government bonds. By contrast, overseas ownership is nearly 10% in China and more than 14% in Indonesia. In 2019, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi flirted with sovereign dollar debt, but dropped the inaugural $10 billion issuance when it drew flak. And rightly so. It would have been risky for a government that has always struggled with high budget deficits to borrow in a currency the country is often short of, thanks to its heavy energy imports. The revised aspiration since then has been to get as much as $40 billion over two years (in rupees, not dollars) by pushing for India’s inclusion in global bond indexes.
That’s the right way to go, but pesky taxation issues have come in the way. New Delhi imposes up to a 30% capital-gains levy on listed bonds sold within one year. There is also a 5% withholding tax on interest income for foreign portfolio investors.
With Russia going off the benchmarks, asset managers would welcome the yield kick India would offer. However, they’re hoping that in its desperation to find a new source of capital ahead of further rate increases by the Fed, the Modi administration will blink first and offer tax concessions.
Hence, the standoff. That any trading in rupee bonds may have to be settled onshore, and not on an international platform like Euroclear, isn’t the showstopper it’s often made out to be. As Bloomberg News noted last week, even Indonesian and Chinese bonds aren’t on Euroclear but are part of the JPMorgan Index. The real issue is that the operations people at large asset managers are balking at the idea of getting a tax certificate ahead of settling each trade onshore in India.
What will break the impasse and when? Apart from some simplification of processes and taxation, a lot will depend on the Reserve Bank of India’s policies, especially on exchange rates. While the relentless surge in the dollar is putting pressure on economies across Asia, responses by individual nations have been “eclectic,” as Nomura Holdings Inc. noted recently.
—Bloomberg