After Marc Faber, Jim Rogers of Rogers Holdings has joined the bandwagon of experts who thinks that Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan is one of the best central bankers across the world.
India has been among the best-performing emerging markets amid a global currency rout against the dollar in a capital flight not seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Investors across the globe favour India since it has avoided the mistakes of other central banks that kept interest rates low to stimulate growth, and a government that is more prudent with its finances.
"One of the advantages that India has other than having the lot of smarter people is that your central banker (Raghuram Rajan) is probably the best central banker in the world, or at least the least bad central banker in the world," said Jim Rogers of Rogers Holdings in an interview with ET Now on Friday.
"I always admire what I read, when he says things. Unfortunately, he is not the Indian government. He cannot save India, but you certainly have the least bad central banker in the world and I hope he continues being like that," he added.
Rogers who has already sold off his India shares further added that he is delighted to see, and even though he does not own the rupee, he is certainly watching what he does and what he says.
Even at a time of global rout in global equities, Raghuram Rajan said in an exclusive interview with ET on Wednesday that global financial markets may be in turmoil, but Indian investors shouldn't worry too much.
Raghuram Rajan took over the job two years ago at a time when the rupee had suffered a precipitous drop, but then helped to nurse the currency back to health.
In an interview with ET earlier this week, Rajan said that "we want growth to be faster than what it is today. Obviously, there are pockets that are hurting, absolutely. But I think you would be hard pressed to argue that this is the kind of emergency we saw in 2008 ourselves or the kind of emergency that some other countries are facing across the world today."
"And you have to be a little careful about disrupting the narrative at a time when the narrative is India is picking up, India has a lot of opportunity, India has a lot of optimism to react as if it is in a deep emergency - the two do not go together," he added.
An all-round improvement in macroeconomic fundamentals since then has made India almost bullet-proof against the vagaries of financial markets and the biggest differentiator from two years ago is the confidence this had engendered.
"There is confidence that we are actually quite healthy," Rajan told ET in an interview ahead of his departure for the annual global economists conclave at Jackson Hole in the US.
In an interview with ET Now earlier in August, Marc Faber said he did not trust central bankers except that of India's, since he has a solid grip on monetary policies, while the other monetary authorities around the world were basically money printers.
"Mr Raghuram Rajan is an outstanding man who understands central banking. He is probably only one in the world among the crowds of professors at central banks that actually has a good grip on monetary policies and what you can or cannot achieve with them. He should get the Noble Prize in economics, but others are all money printers at heart, all of them," Faber said.
(With inputs from ET Bureau)
Courtesy - ECONOMICTIMES
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