New Delhi: Painting an optimistic picture on the external front, the Reserve Bank has said the country is ready for the US Federal Reserve’s tapering, and has pegged the current account deficit at below 3% for this fiscal in its eighth Financial Stability Report.
Delay in the tapering of the $85 billion-a-month bond buyback programme by the US Fed (tapering will start from January 1) gave the country time to replenish the forex reserves and rein in the high current account gap. In the third week of December, the US Fed announced that it would cut back bond buying by $10 billion a month to $75 billion from January on the back of improvement in the world’s biggest economy.
The CAD is expected to be less than 3% of the GDP during the current financial year,” the RBI said in the half-yearly report. “On balance, the country’s external position appears to be manageable and reserves seem adequate. CAD shot up to an all-time high of 4.8% last year on account of a heavy trade deficit and higher gold imports.
The authorities acted on multiple fronts, curbing gold imports, opening currency swap windows to get fresh dollar flows, and increasing money market rates to reduce speculation. All of these resulted in the CAD coming down to 1.2% of GDP in Q2 and the exchange reserves rallying for six weeks till mid December at over $295 billion as of last week.
However, it took note of the fact that the measures announced since September have contained volatility in the forex market. The emerging geopolitical situation and the increased availability of alternative energy sources like shale gas can also have a positive impact on the energy import bill, RBI said
Bureau Report
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