India’s current account deficit improves to $5.4 billion
01 Jul 2011
India's current account deficit declined significantly to $5.4 billion during the fourth quarter of 2010-11 from $10 billion in the October-December quarter, and $12.8 billion a year earlier, reveals new RBI data released on Thursday.
This was aided by strong receipts from the travel, software and financial services sectors, said the RBI.
''Moderation in trade deficit, resulting from higher growth in merchandise exports than imports, coupled with turnaround in net invisibles surplus, led to significant contraction in current account deficit,'' the RBI said.
Current account deficit indicates the country's total imports of goods, services and transfers is greater than its total export of goods, services and transfers.
Despite the improvement in the quarterly current account deficit for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, the current account deficit rose to $44.3 billion from $38.4 billion a year earlier.
But as a percentage of gross domestic product, the current account deficit marginally narrowed to 2.6 per cent as against 2.8 per cent in 2009-10.