Second COVID wave impact to be far lesser than first one: ICICI Pru’s Anand Shah

Anand Shah, Head of PMS and AIF Investments at ICICI PRU AMC to discuss fundamentals of the market. He believes India will recover fast like other economies like the US, China, and EU and the economic impact of the second wave would be far lesser than the first wave

Talking about the second wave and its impact on economic activity in India Shah said, “As far as India, one needs to differentiate between the first wave and this current new wave for the simple reasons that there were many unknowns last time. This new wave notwithstanding that it has a huge intensity in pockets, first and foremost it is not pan India, second I don’t think we are going for a lockdown and to that extent, the economic impact would not be as significant as we had last time.”

On banks and the impact of second-wave on the asset quality Shah said, “In the very first round most of the banks have done very aggressive provisioning and frankly when we are at the end of the one year of the first lockdown or post the first wave I think the asset quality has end-up very well.”