INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mumbai: About 10 days after India shuttered itself to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 through densely populated cities and towns, its
central bank cited the lockdown to halve the number of trading hours in the currency, bond and money markets that have lately witnessed
Friday.
In the past one month, the rupee lost about 4%, hitting record lows at 76.32 a dollar
The local unit closed at 76.17 Friday, down about 0.80%.
Monetary authorities in other Asian countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia
ensure that market participants maintain adequate checks and supervisory controls while optimising thin resources and ensuring the safety of
April 7 and April 17, after which the lockdown is expected to ease.
The unprecedented situation created by the Covid-19 outbreak has
necessitated lockdowns, social distancing, restrictions on movement of people and non-essential activities, work-from-home arrangements and
business continuity plans, the RBI said.
Markets dealing in the currency, central/state government bonds and short-term debt instruments
operate between 9 am and 5 pm
Only the repo corporate-bonds market, a window to borrow short-term money by pledging investment-grade bonds, remains open until 6 pm every
shrunk across market segments after New Delhi announced a threeweek nationwide lockdown, scheduled to end mid-April.
Daily trading volumes
have less than halved in the over-thecounter dollar-rupee market to about $2.5-3 billion, compared with the equivalent of $8-12 billion
before the imposition of the lockdown.
Similarly, daily trading volumes in government bonds plummeted to about a third of the usual
On Friday, sovereign bonds worth Rs 21,000 crore changed hands.
