Home > Business > Business Headline > Report

RBI questions IDBI's $500m ECB plan

Sidhartha & Subhomoy in New Delhi | November 11, 2003 09:38 IST

The Reserve Bank of India has raised objections to Industrial Development Bank of India's proposal to raise $500 million through external commercial borrowings to fund the restructuring of its steel sector debt.

Institutional sources said the central bank is of the opinion that IDBI's target is on the higher side, especially in the context of India's foreign exchange reserves being in excess of $92 billion.

They added that the RBI has pointed out that ICICI Bank received the nod to raise $300 million only last month after the proposal was held back for quite some time.

Meanwhile, the RBI has been going slow on approvals for a host of other ECB issues even though they are of less than $100 million each.

The apex bank has told the companies that it is awaiting a policy nod from the finance ministry on the issue, even though the loans awaiting the green signal are within the approval powers of Mint Road.

North Block is expected to carry out a comprehensive policy review of the ECB window, as the last such one was in 1999-2000.

The ECB plans that have been held up include loans asked for by NHPC, PFC and some other companies.

But the finance ministry has said that it has received no such request on these loans from the RBI. It has instead held that such loans should be cleared by the RBI on its own.

It has also said that a review of the ECB guidelines, including that of maturity and acceptable interest rate spreads, will take some time.


Article Tools

Email this Article

Printer-Friendly Format

Letter to the Editor




Related Stories


Highlights of the Credit Policy

Reddy avoids pre-policy meet

Bank rate, CRR unchanged



People Who Read This Also Read


Fresh Trai blow for cell firms






Powered by










Copyright © 2003 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved.