Today my guest is Sajjid Chinoy, managing director and chief India economist at J.P. Morgan. He is also currently serving as a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. Sajjid previously served on the Advisory Council to India&#x27;s 15th Finance Commission and has served on a number of expert committees of the Reserve Bank of India. We talked about India&#x27;s current balance of payments and capital account challenges, the constraints holding back private investment, why employment and exports have become first-order policy priorities, rupee depreciation, shrinking FDI, and much more. Recorded May 21st, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:18) - Taking Stock of the Indian Economy (00:11:26) - Factors Dragging on Aggregate Demand (00:15:46) - Changing Policy Priorities for Indian Economic Growth (00:22:13) - Rethinking Fiscal Architecture in a Shock-Prone World (00:33:44) - Let the Rupee Depreciate (00:42:46) - Coping with Shrinking Capital Flows (00:50:00) - Improving India&#x27;s Pull Factors (00:54:12) - Export-Led Growth and Improved Resilience (01:00:53) - Navigating Choke Points While Avoiding Autarky (01:07:33) - India&#x27;s Trilemma (01:14:55) - Positive Signs of Resilience in the Indian Economy (01:18:41) - Outro

Sajjid Chinoy on Whether India Faces Another 1991 Moment

Ideas of India

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**Podcast:** Ideas of India

## Transcript

Welcome to Ideas of India, where we examine the academic ideas that can propel India forward. My name is Shruti Rajagopalan and I'm a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Today my guest is Sajjid Chinoy, who is the Managing Director and Chief India Economist at J.P. Morgan. He's also currently serving as a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India.

Sajjid previously served on the Advisory Council to India's 15th Finance Commission and has also served on a number of expert committees of the Reserve Bank of India. We talked about India's current balance of payments and capital account challenges, the constraints holding back private investment, why employment and exports have become first-order policy priorities, the rupee depreciation, shrinking FDI and much more.

For a full transcript of this conversation, including helpful links of all the references mentioned, click the link in the show notes or visit mercatus.org slash podcasts. Hi Sajjid, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to have you here. It's great to be here, Shruti. Thank you. So we're recording in the last week of May where the world is a little bit crazy.

So the world economy is turbulent. The Indian economy has got a lot of challenges that it hasn't faced in many years, maybe even in decades. The current crisis is that the rupee is well above 95 to the dollar or well below 95 to the dollar, depending on how we say this. Fuel prices are rising and will only rise further because we're almost at the end of our, you know, sort of inventory and stockpile. The import bill is rising again, same because of the West Asian crisis.

And in a more macro sense, you know, FDI has nearly stalled in India over a longer term, maybe like a decade long trend now. You know, private capital investment has been not picking up, same with domestic demand. And things look like they're only going to get worse because of the global uncertainty and also, you know, the increase in input costs. So I don't think it's a 1991 style balance of payments crisis,

but that phrase is getting invoked in every other newspaper business column right now. But before we catastrophize over where we are and where things are going, I just wanted to get a sense from you on how you view the Indian economy right now in the last week of May. And you're my go-to expert whenever I think about how to take stock of the Indian economy. So maybe we'll start with that and then we can go into other things. Thank you, Shruti. Thanks very much for that.

So, you know, as you rightly point out, these are unprecedented times in some levels because people talk about this being the largest energy shock ever. And I think at last count, about 14 million barrels were off stream. That's 15, almost 15% of global energy supply. It's not just crude, as we've discussed. It's crude, it's fertilizers, it's heliu...

Sajjid Chinoy on Whether India Faces Another 1991 Moment

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Sajjid Chinoy on Whether India Faces Another 1991 Moment

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