Industry hails RBI's liquidity steps, accommodative stance

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SME Times News Bureau | 09 Oct, 2020
As the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came up with another slew of measures to improve the liquidity scenario, industry players and experts have lauded its steps.

They also appreciated the fact that the central bank has maintained its accommodative stance despite keeping the repo and reverse repo rates unchanged.

Newly-appointed President of PHD Chamber of Commerce, Sanjay Aggarwal, is of the view that at this juncture, the calibrated decision of the RBI is highly appreciable.

"The RBI's announcement to conduct on-tap Targeted Long-term Repo Operations (TLTRO) with tenors of up to 3 years for a total amount of up to Rs 1 lakh crore at a floating rate linked to the policy repo rate is highly appreciable and would enable banks to conduct their operations smoothly without friction while reviving economic and business sentiments across sectors having backward and forward linkages," he said.

He further urged that banking sector to percolate all the 115 basis point (bps) cutw in the repo rate, announced by the RBI during the recent months, and help the economy rebound with rejuvenating the demand and GDP growth trajectory sooner than later.

ASSOCHAM Secretary General, Deepak Sood said: "RBI has rightly earned kudos for its accommodative stance on the benchmark interest rates, without even changing the same. It's rare - when so much optimism is shared with the RBI even when there is no change in rates."

He noted that the reason for an all-round welcoming response to the RBI credit policy review, keeping the rate unchanged at 4 per cent is that the central bank has asserted that it would continue with the "accommodative stance as long as necessary."

This means that the RBI's newly constituted Monetary Policy Committee is committed to reviving growth, even as it expects the inflation to moderate to the target levels, Sood added.

Noting that an unchanged repo rate was on expected lines, Jigar Mistry, co-founder of Buoyant Capital, said that the statement that accommodative stance would continue as long as required for growth, has been taken positively by all markets.

He further said the liquidity measures including on-tap TLTRO of Rs 1 lakh crore are major steps.

Realty sector participants have also appreciated the announcements made on Friday.

Nimish Gupta, MD, RICS South Asia said that with the resumption of real estate activities and migrant labour returning to work in cities, the rationalisation of risk to all new housing loans until March 2022 would provide an impetus to the residential sector.

"The extension of the scheme for co-lending to all NBFCs and HFCs will also act to ease credit availability for developers and investors in real estate," he said.

Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd MD & CEO Sanjay Dutt expects that the extension of the 'co-origination' model of loans to all NBFCs, including Housing Finance Companies (HFC), would help ease credit availability for the real estate sector and address the liquidity issue being faced for a while.

"With this support received in the revival of residential demand, we remain hopeful that the government will address the requirements such as granting of industry status and single window clearance as well in time," Dutt said.

Ram Raheja, Director of S. Raheja Realty, was of the view that with the forthcoming festive season in the country, the extension of the 'co-origination' model, would bring in the fence-sitters who have been eagerly waiting for the boost and encouragement to buy a home.

The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has applauded the central bank for discontinuing the automatic caution-listing of exporters, saying it had become a threat since the outbreak of coronavirus.

"The automatic listing of exporters in RBI's caution list could further worsen the plight of exporters by denying them packing credit and the delay in bank documents can lead to high demurrage charges," AEPC Chairman A. Sakthivel said.