India's Big Green Wrecking Machine: WSJ editorial on Jairam Ramesh

• EVIEW & OUTLOOK ASIA
• NOVEMBER 24, 2010

India's Big Green Wrecking Machine

Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh is hostile to economic development.

It would be easy to dismiss Jairam Ramesh as a buffoon. The Indian minister for environment and forests likes to talk big, as when he recently declared that driving SUVs was "criminal" and called for "a penalty on the type of cars you don't want to see on the roads." This week he fulminated against the affluent American lifestyle and those Indians who aspire to it.

Considering the fondness of Indian politicians for cruising around in SUVs and partying in their villas, it's doubtful the government will act on these particular pronouncements anytime soon. But Mr. Ramesh continues to use his office to do serious economic damage. No industry can afford to be cavalier when the minister has them in his sights.

Mr. Ramesh's ministry, which awards and rescinds environmental clearances in an arbitrary manner reminiscent of the "license-permit raj," has held up dams in India's northeast as well as power plants and highways around the country. On Monday he finally withdrew his opposition to a new airport for Mumbai after raising objections for over a year. In the last month, panels appointed by Mr. Ramesh have recommended revoking permits for South Korean steel giant Posco's $12 billion project in the eastern state of Orissa, the largest ever overseas investment in India. This comes a full five years after the firm signed an agreement with the Orissa government to set up its plant.

Similar treatment was meted out to Vedanta Resources, which was ordered in August to stop mining bauxite in Orissa. State officials had given the go-ahead, which is crucial to the operation of the company's nearby refinery. The environment ministry decided that sacred land of primitive tribal groups had been violated. As a result, a $1 billion investment is in jeopardy.

Mr Ramesh is sometimes held up as India's first environmentalist minister of environment. Last month, he even set up a separate green court to punish polluters, making India only the third country in the world (after Australia and New Zealand) to implement such an idea.

But it's increasingly clear that what Mr. Ramesh is pushing is hostility to economic development. This represents a fundamental split within the Congress Party between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who advocates private sector growth, and Sonia Gandhi, who embodies the Nehru family tradition of statism. For now, the political power-brokers are tolerating Mr. Singh, whose reforms have helped lift millions of Indians out of poverty. But the risk remains that Congress will revert to its socialist ideology and the Jairam Rameshes in the cabinet will sabotage the country's growth.

India's Balanced Growth: WSJ editorial on balance of payments

• REVIEW & OUTLOOK ASIA
• JANUARY 7, 2011

India's Balanced Growth

Instead of fretting about trade deficits, India should open up more to foreign direct investment.

Late last year, New Delhi reported that its economy clocked 8.9% year-on-year growth in the July-September quarter, further closing the growth gap with China. And as the economics textbooks predict for a country growing this quickly, India is importing capital goods, as its investment cycle picks up again, and consumer goods, as a population with rising incomes aspires to a higher standard of living. Capital is flowing in to fuel growth and a trade deficit.

Yet this is hardly the norm among the fast-growing tiger economies of East Asia, which grow by running trade surpluses and accumulating massive foreign exchange reserves. So established has this model become that India looks like an outlier.

It is cause for celebration that India is bucking the trend. Unlike other countries in Asia that grew by subsidizing their export sectors, India is letting the benefits of free trade accrue to its entire population. The economy's main engine is a stable mix of domestic-oriented investment and demand, and its companies face the rigors of competition. This reduces the risk of malinvestment and balance-sheet recessions.

However, some observers are now sounding the alarm about balance of payments data released by the Reserve Bank of India last Friday, which show the current account deficit widening to $15.8 billion for the July-September quarter, from $12.1 billion in the previous quarter. Does this mean India is going off the rails?

The short answer is, not necessarily. The real worry, though, is that New Delhi still hasn't implemented necessary reforms so it can absorb foreign investment and continue growing at a fast and sustainable pace.

This isn't the first time there is alarm over India's current account deficit. Since it caught the 8%-plus growth train last decade, Indian policy makers have continually fretted about what sort of investment is financing imports. Much like now, from 2006 to mid-2008 low interest rates in the West drove institutional investors to seek higher returns in emerging markets; the flood of capital into India's stock market was contributing to overheating, at least until the post-Lehman shock sent the money flows into reverse for a couple of years.

The Reserve Bank of India is worried that these flows might again prove destabilizing. For instance, in July-September 2010, flows into Indian stocks and bonds made up 88% of foreign investment inflows that totalled $21.7 billion. The central bank considers these flows "volatile." The more stable foreign direct investment trickled in at $2.5 billion, a far cry from, say, the $10 billion in FDI India absorbed in the April-June quarter of 2008. So, in a financial stability report published last week, the RBI marked the current account deficit as a downside risk to the Indian economy.

We're sympathetic to the concern that easy money in the U.S. is causing problems for developing countries like India. But we're not sympathetic to the kind of steps the RBI took in 2007 to "manage" India's capital account: Greater limits on foreign borrowings and more scrutiny on foreign investors, besides stalling on the introduction of new financial products.

To RBI's credit this time, despite last year's episode of "currency wars," it resisted putting new capital controls in place and intervening in foreign exchange markets to weaken the rupee. In fact, it has gradually proceeded with capital account liberalization in the past year: Last September's relaxation of the foreign investment limit in bonds is one encouraging sign.

When it comes to the RBI's lament over the composition of capital account inflows, it's worth noting that New Delhi's own policies skew that composition. As Cornell economist Eswar Prasad explains nearby, investment tends to flow into Indian stocks because that market offers transparent regulation and minimal restrictions. Managers of multinational companies will tell you that's not true for foreign direct investment; each sector from power plants to shopping malls comes with its own labyrinthine set of regulations, on top of general limits on FDI.

Since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government was returned to power in mid-2009, it hasn't relaxed any more FDI caps. Wal-mart still can't enter India's retail market because no FDI is allowed in multi-brand retail; the 26% cap in insurance means no global insurance major can enter as a majority owner. What's worse, the government's environmental activism has made FDI more uncertain. For example, Korean steel giant Posco has been nervously awaiting New Delhi's sanction for a $12 billion project in the eastern state of Orissa. Though a government panel on Monday gave Posco its clearance, the project needs final political approval. This explains why FDI into India is now slowing down.

India has the potential to establish a new model for more sustainable and balanced growth in competition with the East Asian export-led model. But if it fails to undertake reforms to make it a more attractive destination of foreign capital, it will cap its own growth potential. New Delhi deserves praise for remaining more open to portfolio investment than other Asian nations, but going to the other extreme of hampering FDI is inconsistent with its laudable record of balanced growth.

Back to the License Raj: WSJ editorial on India FDI

• REVIEW & OUTLOOK ASIA
• FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Back to the License Raj?

Another example of the arbitrary interference that is slowing foreign investment into India.

Foreign direct investment into India shrank 22% in 2010, even as foreign portfolio capital increased more than 100%. The main reason FDI has started going elsewhere is the regulatory environment for foreign firms. A good example of the problem is the Cairn-Vedanta saga playing out in New Delhi's corridors of power this month.

Last August, London-listed mining firm Vedanta announced it would buy a majority stake in Cairn India, a local oil explorer owned by U.K.-based Cairn Energy. Shareholders in both firms approved the deal last year. But this $9.6 billion acquisition still hasn't cleared regulators.

India's oil ministry had earlier promised both companies that it would approve the deal by December; it later pushed the deadline to the end of February. Now that deadline also appears improbable, with India's cabinet stepping in last week to offer its judgment. British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote to his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh recently to express concerns about the logjam.

Delays are one thing, but India is also changing the rules in the middle of the game. Regulators are now haggling with Cairn over the details of the contract that allowed it to explore oil fields in the northern state of Rajasthan.

As per that contract, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, the Indian state-owned firm that owns a minority share in these fields, would bear the full burden of the royalty owed to the government for extracting oil. But ONGC offers a different legal interpretation of the royalty, which, if agreed to, could suddenly alter the valuation of the fields and imperil the deal. Cairn contests this interpretation, but New Delhi is invoking "national interest" to ensure that its ward's interests be met. Before the deal can go through, Vedanta and Cairn are supposed to give up their right to arbitration on disputes with the government. Both firms have rightly refused.

New Delhi's conduct here is of a piece with the treatment meted out to other investors. Mr. Cameron's letter, for instance, mentions Vodafone, the British firm that's battling a tax case over its 2007 acquisition of one of India's largest telecom operators. New Delhi says Vodafone is liable for $2.5 billion in capital gains taxes for a transaction that occurred between two non-Indian entities outside India. This is the first time such a transaction has been taxed, which is why a Mumbai court had to uphold the taxman's authority last September. New Delhi even changed a technical income-tax provision in 2008 with retroactive effect, just to allow the taxman to pursue the 2007 deal.

Then there's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. The problem with his activist agenda isn't just that economic growth is being sacrificed for environmentalism. It's also that Mr. Ramesh's ministry has either reversed local governments who had first given approval to industrial projects (Vedanta's aluminium mining in the eastern state of Orissa last year) or revisited those approvals to keep the company guessing (Korean steel giant Posco's plant in Orissa, finally cleared last month after five years).

Moreover, the minutiae in India's FDI regulations are driving seasoned investors to distraction. In early 2009, the government introduced amendments to its FDI policy that wrought confusion for investors, as they discovered new discrepancies, loopholes and backdoors in the rules limiting FDI. While some of these amendments have since been rescinded or clarified, the lasting effect has been to increase the power of the bureaucracy. Previously foreigners understood they were limited to a certain percentage stake in a company depending on the sector; now in some cases it's up to regulators to set FDI ceilings on a company-by-company basis.

Such arbitrary interference erodes the rule of law and takes India backward toward the practices of the infamous License Raj. Then almost all economic activity was subject to the whims of rent-seeking politicians and bureaucrats. Having largely extricated itself from this corrupt and inefficient morass 20 years ago, why is New Delhi determined to repeat history and drive foreign investment away?