Budget 2021 strengthens our case of recovery in India, says Aberdeen Standard's Adrian Lim

Budget 2021 strengthens our case of recovery in India, said Adrian Lim, Investment Director-Asian Equities, Aberdeen Standard Investments on Tuesday. The investment firm has maintained an overweight stance on India and Lim added that the budget was supportive of the current difficult environment.

Discussing Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Union Budget and the outlook on the road ahead, he said, “The budget 2021 was pretty supportive of the difficult environment that the country is currently going through, this was an aggressive budget, very strong growth budget and it justifies the difficult environment that the world is going through currently.”

We have maintained an overweight stance on India, Lim said.

“Our regional portfolios have maintained an overweight in India. We have been increasing our weight over the last quarter and the December quarter, this budget helps to strengthen the case for a recovery in India that will be faster, so it is a positive move.”

On stocks, he said, “We have a balanced portfolio. We have relatively large positions in IT, in the financial space and broadly in the consumer space. It is very clear from the budget announcement though that it would be incrementally positive for the infrastructure and for the financial space. We have exposure there already, so we wouldn’t be adjusting our portfolios too much on the back of the budget announcements.”

Aberdeen AMC’s Lim sees bottoming out of India earnings levels. “It looks like it will recover from here but the pace of growth is very difficult to extrapolate,” he said.

On real estate, he said, “We have got quite elevated allocations to properties but it is not on the back of anticipating the budget announcement nor is it on the back of any short-term news over the last quarter or so.”