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India has scrapped a capital gains tax and opened up more debt to foreign bond buyers, the latest in a slew of measures seen as supporting the languishing rupee.
The government said on Friday it had removed a 12.5 per cent capital gains tax for foreign institutions on interest from India’s sovereign debt. The Reserve Bank of India also said it would allow global investors to buy 40-year bonds, up from the current 10-year maturity limit.
RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra said the central bank would also raise the current 10 per cent ceiling for individual foreign ownership of India-listed companies, though he did not specify by how much.
“These measures, along with the tax benefits provided by the government this morning, should help attract foreign capital for government borrowing,” Malhotra said after the central bank’s monetary policy meeting. The moves came even as the RBI held interest rates.
The rupee has fallen 6 per cent against the dollar since the start of the year, making it one of Asia’s worst-performing currencies, as an increasing import bill from oil trade disruptions in Iran and record foreign capital outflows weigh on the currency.
Indian authorities have taken several measures to support the rupee over the past couple of months. The central bank made it harder to short the currency by limiting open positions in the rupee and certain kinds of derivatives. Its foreign exchange reserves have fallen $40bn since the start of the war in Iran.
The rupee strengthened 0.5 per cent to Rs95.3 a dollar on Friday.
The RBI downgraded its forecast for GDP growth in the current year to March 2027 to 6.6 per cent, from 6.9 per cent earlier, citing the war in Iran and an expected weak monsoon season that could damp agricultural activity.
“Prolonged global supply chain disruptions, volatility in global financial markets and weather-related shocks continue to pose downside risks to the domestic growth outlook,” Malhotra said, adding that the impact of “cost pressures is becoming visible”.
The central bank held its key policy rate at 5.25 per cent despite the weak rupee. It cut rates by 1.25 percentage points last year and had expected to keep them low until the global energy disruption caused by the Middle East conflict.
India is the world’s third-largest consumer of oil and gas and imports 90 per cent of its supply, with half coming from the Middle East.
As energy prices rose, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for Indians to cut back on foreign travel, conserve fuel and avoid buying gold, which, along with oil and gas, is a major contributor to India’s import bill.
Indians imported $72bn of gold in the 2025-26 fiscal year that ended in March, a 24 per cent increase from the previous year. To curb imports that were adding pressure to the rupee, the government raised the duty on gold from 6 per cent to 15 per cent last month.
The rupee has recovered slightly from its record low of almost Rs97 a dollar on May 19, but the government has struggled to stem the outflow of capital from the country.
Foreign investors have shed their Indian holdings at the fastest pace ever, pulling out more than $25bn this year.
