India better placed than the rest as US-China trade talks near collapse

The rupee on Monday weakened to close at 69.40 a dollar, from its previous close of 69.22

With US President Donald Trump threatening to increase tariff on $200-billion worth of Chinese goods this week and target hundreds of billions more soon, analysts are predicting that trade talks between the two largest economies are essentially over.

The collapse of trade talks would bring forward a great uncertainty to the world, and hit Asia in particular quite hard, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had warned in its Spring Meetings in Washington. There will surely be deprecation pressure on the local currencies, as export-dependent countries try to make their wares attractive to the buyers. But as offshoot to that, there could