Widening trade deficit raises India’s vulnerability to global shocks: Moody’s

19 Feb 2013 Evaluate

Global rating agency Moody's has warned India that widening trade deficit is 'credit negative' for the country, which also raises its vulnerability to global shocks. Moody's currently has 'Baa3' (lowest investment grade) rating for India with a stable outlook and any downward revision from here could pull the country's credit rating into junk grade.

The country's trade deficit in January, 2013 stood at its second highest level whereas the biggest ever gap of $21 billion was recorded in October, 2012. India's trade deficits averaged about $13.5 billion a month in 2011 and $16 billion a month in 2012, up from an average of $9.5 billion a month between 2008 and 2010.

As per Moody’s, widening trade deficits can also weaken the currency, raising domestic prices of imported commodities and further fuelling India's already high inflation rate. It said that the three main factors responsible for widening trade deficit over the past two years, includes rising prices of oil, gold that account for a bulk of the country's merchandise imports and a loose fiscal policy, which stimulates domestic demand.

Further, it added that global economic slowdown is also responsible for high trade deficit as it lowered the demand for Indian export. Moreover, rating agency has also expressed the need of suitable policies to enhance domestic competitiveness in 2013 and to focus on lowering the foreign-currency debt. The external debt burden has risen to $365 billion as of third-quarter 2012 from $137 billion in third-quarter of 2006. 

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