Ruling out ban on sale of gold coins by banks, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Duvvuri Subbarao said, the central bank does not intend to ban banks from selling gold coins, but asked the lenders to refrain from aggressively selling the precious metal, though it is sticking to its stance of discouraging speculative investments in gold.
By adding further, the governor said, the attractiveness of gold is a consequence of high inflation and the route of buying gold for the purpose of genuinely saving should be available to the people. He also emphasized that investment in the financial sector is good for the economy. Recently, the central bank imposed restrictions on banks and NBFCs for providing loans against gold coins as well as units of gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Mutual Funds (MFs).
India is the largest consumer of gold and the record buying of gold is seen as a key reason for higher current account deficit (CAD), which stood at a record high of 6.7% in third quarter of FY 13. In April, gold import jumped by 138% to $7.5 billion the highest so far this year. Further, to curb the gold import, the government has also taken several steps recently, including raising import duty.
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