India plans to make a renewed pitch for inclusion of its sovereign debt in major global bond gauges, including the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index, after exempting foreign investors from capital gains and withholding taxes and vastly widening the investable pool of long-dated securities, officials said.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and finance ministry officials may also reach out to the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for talks, they said. BIS has been given a special tax-exempt status in the latest rejig. BIS invests significantly in government securities (G-secs) and enjoys tax-free status everywhere.

With the latest development, it is expected to bring $7-11 billion into India, one of the officials said. “We would be talking to them (global bond index operators)…There is regular engagement in any case,” said a second official, adding that major concerns have been considerably addressed.
Global Relevance
Issues expressed by bond operators earlier include tax benefits, market access and settlement, as per the official cited.

Clarity on trade settlement oversight is also likely to lift the likelihood of India’s inclusion in the Bloomberg Global gauge, which is tracked by multiple bulge-bracket funds worldwide for passive allocations into fixed income instruments. Even before formal inclusion talks are held, India should draw investments of about $5 billion into specified bonds immediately, market participants told ET.
“We expect these tax exemptions to make investing in Indian government bonds compelling for many foreign investors, and also significantly strengthen the case for inclusion in the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index, especially if these bonds are made eligible for Euroclear settlement,” said Parul Mittal Sinha, head of markets (India and South Asia), Standard Chartered Bank. “We expect incremental inflows of approximately $5 billion in Indian government bonds from FPIs in the immediate future in response to these announcements, aided by tax exemptions and expectations of improved performance of the rupee versus other Asian currencies.”India has been a part of the JP Morgan Global Bond Index-Emerging Markets from June 2024, Bloomberg’s EM Local Currency Government Index from January 2025, and the FTSE Russell Emerging Market Index since last September. However, Bloomberg’s Global Aggregate Bond Index—one of the world’s most widely used indices—deferred its India inclusion in January, signalling further evaluation of key operational and market infrastructure issues. Back then, Bloomberg’s index services had cited infrastructure bottlenecks related to trading workflows and complex fund registration processes to defer its decision to include Indian instruments on its global gauge.

Typically, index inclusion makes global funds tracking those benchmarks to allocate capital proportionately to the country’s weight. This can potentially spur additional annual foreign fund flows worth tens of billions of dollars into India, lower the government’s borrowing cost and deepen the bond market, analysts said. Higher inflows can also help reverse the rupee fall.

Welcome Moves
A raft of government announcements on Friday brightened prospects of inclusion in the remaining major global indices, said analysts.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) faced a 12.5% long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax on listed shares and bonds held longer than 12 months and a 20% withholding tax on interest earned on G-secs.

The government brought in an ordinance to scrap these levies. It also added G-secs in tenors of 15-, 30- and 40 years, as well as sovereign green bonds, to the list of specified securities under the fully accessible route for FPIs investments. Earlier, the facility was only available for papers with tenors of up to 10 years.

Asian markets plunged on Monday as investors slammed the brakes on the red-hot AI rally, while Israeli strikes on Beirut sent oil prices and the dollar higher.

An 8% drop for South Korea’s chip-heavy KOSPI benchmark triggered a 20-minute trading halt and has it down almost 17% from last week’s record high.

Japan’s Nikkei fell 3.5% in early trade, though ‌U.S. S&P 500 ⁠and Nasdaq ⁠100 futures made small gains.

The Nasdaq had dropped 4.2% on Friday, with selling concentrated in semiconductor stocks after a hot jobs report ramped up expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, putting the brakes on what has been a sparkling AI-led rally.

Two-year Treasury yields rose more than 11 basis points on Friday and benchmark 10-year Treasury futures were about five ticks lower early on Monday morning in Asia.

“The AI-drives-everything narrative frayed last week,” said Bob ⁠Savage, head ‌of markets macro strategy at BNY.
“Whether this is a healthy pause in the nine-week equity rally or a top remains the key question. The ⁠IPO focus on SpaceX and Anthropic is part of the pause – whether to make room for the new market cap or to rethink value.” INFLATION AND ECB AHEAD

The week ahead is headlined by the giant SpaceX listing, expected to price on Thursday and trade on Friday, but will also have inflation in focus with U.S. consumer price data due on Wednesday and central bank meetings in Canada and Europe.

Last week, bitcoin notched its heaviest weekly drop since the collapse of crypto exchange ‌FTX in late 2022, falling about 16%. It was hovering just shy of $63,000 on Monday.

SpaceX’s debut is expected to be followed by other mega IPOs in the coming months from Anthropic ⁠and OpenAI, raising so much money that brokers are nervous it could draw down other assets.

The Middle East situation also remains delicate, and Brent crude futures were up about 2.6% to $95.45 a barrel on Monday morning after an Israeli attack on Beirut prompted Iran to direct a salvo of missiles at Israeli targets.

OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to the fourth increase in its oil output targets in as many months.

In currency trade the dollar was firm and holding above 160 yen and pushed the Australian dollar to $0.7038. The euro hovered at $1.1518.