India eyes major bond index entry as tax exemptions sweeten appeal

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.

ETMarkets.com

Latest policy steps seen upping India’s chances; finmin, RBI to tap newly tax-exempt BIS, others

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.