India won't lower guard against risks from Brexit

New Delhi: The finance ministry and other regulators including RBI, on Tuesday decided to be in a state of preparedness for managing any external sector vulne-rabilities, including those emerging from Brexit. During the 15th Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) meeting, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the major challenges before the government include strategy to improve the overall performance of public sector banks, to make stalled projects functional and economically viable and to increase private sector investment among others.

He said that due to better spread of monsoon, the government is expecting higher production of pulses this year compared to previous years which in turn will substantially ease their prices in the market. The meeting was attended among others by MoS finance Jayant Sinha, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, finance secretary Ashok Lavasa, chief economic adviser  Arvind Subramanian and Sebi chairman U.K. Sinha among others.

During the meet, CEA Dr Subramanian gave an overview of the state of macro-economy highlighting important issues. The Council noted that uncertainty in global economy and high volatility in the financial markets are prominent risks confronting the emerging market economies. However, the council felt that India is much better placed on the back of imp-rovement in its macro-economic fundamentals, recent financial sector reforms by government and large forex reserves, which provides cushion against financial market volatility.