Global index inclusion would marginally boost bonds

Speculation is building that India will be included in major global bond indices over the next year or so. If that happens, it would highlight the local bond market’s growing maturity and be cast as a coup by the government, for which bond index inclusion has long been a stated policy aim. With vast amounts of assets tracking global indices, this would leave scope for a rise in portfolio inflows. To be clear, with India’s weighting in any global index likely to be small and increased only gradually, the impact is more likely to be marginal than transformational. Nevertheless, bond index inclusion would still bolster our view that, supported by a commitment from the RBI to keep policy very accommodative, Indian bond yields should only rise very slightly over the next 18 months even in an environment of higher US Treasury yields.   Drop-In: Evergrande – What are the risks to China and the world? Chief Asia Economist Mark Williams and Senior China Economist Julian Evans-Pritchard will be joined by Senior Markets Economist Oliver Jones to take your questions about the Evergrande situation. They’ll be covering the implications of collapse for China’s financial system and growth outlook, and assessing the global markets fallout. Register here for the 0900 BST/1600 HKT session on Thursday, 23^rd September.