Rupee logo a symbol of India's economic rise

Updated July 30, 2010 13:09:15

The Indian rupee has joined the ranks of the world's major currencies with this month's release of its own currency symbol.

The move gives the rupee a new face in international markets and is another sign of the country's rising emergence in the world economy.

Presenter: Claudette Werden
Speakers: Dr. Satinder Bhatia, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade; Sameer Arora, Australia India Business Council; Dr. Rajesh Chadha, National Council of Applied Economic Research

WERDEN: India's symbol for the rupee was designed by Indian Institute of Technology assistant Professor Uday Kumar, following a competition announced last year by India's central government. The graphic is a mixture of the Hindi letter for R and two horizontal lines similar to those found on the Euro symbol. Just like the US dollar, the UK pound, the EU euro and the Japanese yen, India is hoping its Rupee symbol will lead to greater global recognition. Sameer Arora from the Australia India Business Council says the symbol is an important branding opportunity and one that will differentiate India's currency from that of Bangladesh and Pakistan.

ARORA: They're trying to retain the Indian language and culture and at the same time giving it an international flavour and a feel, because everyone knows India's going global and there is so much international business happening with India these days, the other reason is the old symbol which is RS, it's being used by other countries.

WERDEN: Dr Rajesh Chadha, chief economist with India's National Council of Applied Economic Research believes the branding of the currency is a way of highlighting the increasing strength of the country's overall economy.

CHADHA: The currency's obviously gaining strength with globalisation and integration with the Indian economy and with the economy growing at about 8 to 9 per cent per annum so I think there is enough strength the rupee would have and it's the right time to have an identity.

WERDEN: Dr Satinder Bhatia from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade is optimistic India's rupee has the potential to become a strong currency equivalent to the US dollar and Euro,

BHATIA: Definitely I see that happening, because number one, the Indian economy has been growing pretty much appreciably, and therefore the currency has also been gaining recognition in the international market, so until now since there was no symbol that was definitely acting as some kind of a dampener, because all the other currencies which are traded in the international market they had their symbol, so now that we have the symbol it is giving recognition to a currency that's increasingly being traded with and therefore we do expect it to gain immediate recognition and increase the trading also.

WERDEN: Dr Bhatia has played down recent depreciations in the rupee against the US dollar saying there's no direct link to the new symbol. Likewise with inflation, Dr Bhatia says the country's overall inflation is being kept under control with recent interest rate rises by the country's central bank although she admits food shortages in staples such as wheat and rice have lead to a rise in food prices which the government has not been able to control.

BHATIA: Definitely there is some shortage in the feed commodity, that's on the production front which maybe linked to weather ..etc, rainfall, the other I think is infrastructure, because even some times the crop is good but the warehousing arrangements for food are not very very good, so sometimes we do see crops lying out in the open, just covered in cloth or sack etc, so at times that gets destroyed, so I think a lot of focus is required on the infrastructure for storing of the food grains.

WERDEN: And in a move that's expected to further increase foreign investments into Asia's third largest economy, the global ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has raised India's sovereign currency rating one notch to Ba1. Moody's cites India's economic resilience and the government's commitment to fiscal reforms as the two main reasons for its decision.