Worried over the country's ballooning Current Account Deficit (CAD), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said future decisions on monetary easing will not only be driven by the inflation trajectory but also by the widening CAD. RBI governor D Subbarao in the customary post-policy conference call said ‘we will take into account what the CAD is. Monetary easing will not be driven just by inflation numbers or the inflation trajectory’.
As per the RBI governor, the CAD has not only implications on macroeconomic situation but also on the price situation, inflation movement and therefore for monetary policy. It will be difficult to say that monetary policy will just look at inflation numbers and remain blind to all other variables.
Further, Subbarao added that we take into account external sector developments including the size of CAD and the composition of CAD into the monetary policy action but do not target any CAD number. By adding further, he said that the apex bank wants CAD to come down from the present high level of 5.4 percent and that will depend on a number of policy actions and not just the monetary policy.
During the third quarter monetary policy, the RBI slashed its repo rate by 25 basis points at 7.75% against 8% earlier and also cut cash reserve ratio (CRR) of scheduled banks by 25 basis points from 4.25% to 4.0% of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) effective the fortnight beginning February 9, 2013. However, the RBI governor sounded hawkish on more rate cuts, flagging his concerns on the widening CAD.
Meanwhile, the country's CAD touched a record high of 5.4 percent of GDP or $22.3 billion in the July-September quarter on account of higher outflows and decelerated growth in net export of services. Declining for the eighth month in row, exports contracted by 1.92 percent to $24.8 billion in December, widening the country's trade deficit to $17.6 billion for the month.
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