India plans to curb rupee’s slide

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the government and the Reserve Bank of India will announce measures on June 25 to halt a slide in the rupee, which sank to a record low on Friday. His comments were made to reporters in Kolkata on Saturday and broadcast on local television news channels, including ABP News. Mukherjee is the ruling Congress Party’s nominee for a July 19 presidential election and he told Press Trust of India on Saturday that he will resign as finance minister tomorrow. The report did not say who his successor will be. The rupee is the worst-performing currency of the past year, having tumbled 21 per cent against the dollar, and reached an all-time low yesterday of 57.3275 versus the greenback. Fitch Ratings cut India’s sovereign credit-rating outlook to negative on June 18, joining Standard & Poor’s in signaling the country is at risk of losing its investment-grade status. “The situation is quite worrisome,” Dharmakirti Joshi, Mumbai-based chief economist at Crisil, the local unit of S&P, said in an interview on Saturday.