Seeing early signs of rising private investments, says BSE chief

Structural reforms along with Centre's high capital expenditure has triggered private investments to flow into the economy, said the chief of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

In a conversation with IANS, BSE MD and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan pointed out that macro-economic growth indicators have painted a healthy picture of the economy which coincides with the accelerated pace of India's vaccination rate.

"With the Indian government putting focus on structural reforms and capex, we are seeing early signs of increase in private investments."

"That coupled with monetary stimulus provided by RBI aimed at boosting growth is only going to help India remain amongst the fastest growing economies in the world."

According to Chauhan, India's economy has recovered more strongly than it was halted by the pandemic.

"The economic toll from a deadly second wave of Covid-19 outbreak in India last quarter wasn't as bad as feared, with the nation still very much on track to achieving the world's fastest growth this year."

"High-frequency data showed the impact of pandemic restrictions were less severe than last year, enabling demand to recover quickly in the consumption-driven economy."

The optimism over India's economic rebound pushed the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex above the 60,000-mark.

New investors along with healthy inflows of foreign funds and receding impact of Covid 2.0 have been cited as the key propellants of the equity market.

Besides, he expects the localised approach to contain the second Covid wave would continue to allow majority of business activities to continue and cushion the economic blow.

"The economic indicators clearly suggest that the Indian markets shall continue to perform well in in the coming days and achieve newer, greater milestones as we move forward."

Furthermore, he said the pandemic has led in new market participants in the country.

"During the pandemic, we observed that the markets provided liquidity for investors in the worst of times. The government did not force the markets to close which allowed people who were in need of funds to sell their assets like stocks or mutual fund units, collect their money, use it for other purposes and that would not have been possible if we had closed down the markets."

"Also, another reason is the rapid digitisation of processes that occurred during this time, it has made the investment process much easier for new comers and veterans alike."

Recently, the BSE crossed the 8 crore Registered Investor Accounts (UCC).

The journey from 7 to 8 crore users took only 107 days making it the fastest addition in the history.

(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in)

--IANS

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