Green light for India to join JPMorgan bond index

Sleeping giant: Workers load a truck with sacks of grains and other items at a wholesale market in Kolkata. The country has embarked on drive to raise its standing in international financial markets. — Reuters

NEW DELHI: JPMorgan will include India in its widely tracked emerging market debt index, setting the stage for billions of dollars of inflows into the world’s fifth-largest economy and helping it finance its current account and fiscal deficits.

India’s local bonds will be included in the Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) index and the index suite, benchmarked by about US$236bil in global funds, according to JPMorgan.