Unfazed by spurt in gold import in October, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday said theinward shipment of the precious metal will remain severely compressed in the current fiscal.
Gold imports rose to 23.5 tonnes in October from 11.164 tonnes in September.
“I am not worried of imports of about 23.5 tonnes. Hope it remains at a level of about 20 tonnes a month in which event at the end of the year gold imports would have been severely compressed and that would be a very good sign for the current account deficit,” he said.
Gold imports in July and August stood at 47.75 tonnes and 3.38 tonnes respectively. In 2012-13 fiscal, gold imports stood at 845 tonnes.
Chidambaram said with the decline in gold import and improvement in exports, the CAD in the current fiscal would be contained at $60 billion, lower than $88.2 billion in 2012-13.
High gold imports was one of the main reasons that pushed CAD – the difference between the inflow and outflow of foreign exchange – to a record high of 4.8 per cent of GDP, or $88.2 billion, in the previous financial year.
The government has hiked import duty on gold to 10 per cent in third revision this year in a bid to curb the surging imports and burgeoning CAD.
CAD for April-June was $21.8 billion or 4.9 per cent of GDP.
PTI
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