There is signficant tech boom in India these days, fed largely by outsourcing from the US. There is a limit to how many of India's billion people are sufficiently educated and intelligent to do the work, but it is likely in the tens of millions. The US has millions of service, whitecolar, and factory jobs that may yet be outsourced. So, with opportunities for cheap labor in the tens of billions of dollars, I expect an increasing number of US companies to outsource in the future, which will require paying the Indians with rupees. What will this do to the exchange rate between dollars and rupees? I suspect that we will witness a significant increase in the price of rupees as expressed in dollars. Opportunities for foriegn investment in India will magnifiy the effect. Therefore, I recomend investors buy rupees today for $0.0226912 each (i.e. 44.07 rupees/USD), and in time (a couple years?), sell them for a tidy profit. 
Graphs showing dollars to rupees over time indicate the ratio has been increasing.
I expect a similar thing will eventually happen with the Chinese yuan, but their government will keep it pegged to the dollar for some time to come.
David said that the underlying industries would be a better investment. I think he is probably right, so put your money in mutual funds for Indian outsourcing firms.
Posted by: seander at April 14, 2004 09:13 AM