While Ben Bernanke can barely make out the glass, let alone the quantity of liquid in it, policymakers in Asia generally see the world in much sharper relief. Yesterday’s review of monetary policy from Duvvuri Subbarao, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, opened with a contrast between the “visible soft spots” in Europe and the US, and the “increasingly broad-based” recovery at home.
Another quarter-point increase in the basic repo lending rate on Tuesday, to 5.75 per cent – the second rise this month and fourth this year – was expected, given that India’s wholesale inflation rate has hovered above 10 per cent for the past five months. Less-widely anticipated was a half-point increase in the reverse repo rate – through which the RBI absorbs money from the system – to 4.5 per cent. That marked the first time since the last tightening cycle in 2008 that the RBI lifted a key rate by more than 25 basis points.
Normalisation of policy settings is under way elsewhere across Asia. Unlike in developed markets, economies seem to have developed real traction after unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus. All bar Indonesia, the Philippines and China have raised base interest rates. Unimpaired banking systems are disseminating credit effectively: in India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan loan growth is still accelerating.