Saturday, December 18, 2004

Monsoon derivatives

Looks like weather derivatives based on the monsooon are finally entering India. Infact its quite surprising they took so long to come to India, considering the size of the effect the monsoon has on the Indian economy - almost anything and everything in India has linkages with how well the monsoon does in India - haven't seen a single economic survey or report on India not mentioning the monsoon. So monsoon derivatives market has a very huge potential. I think the delay was due to the relative non-sophistication of Indian financial institutions and the financial market. But it does seem to be changing and all for the good I suppose. Monsoon derivatives, if used properly, could actually prop up India's GDP growth at times of fluctuating monsoons (as this year).

Article in today's Business Standard Page 9. Apparently RaboBank and ABNAmro have been the first to introduce these in the market in India. Internationally the weather derivatives market is supposed to be approximately $12bn.

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