India’s current account slips back to deficit on wider trade gap

India’s current-account balance slipped back into a deficit last quarter as the nation’s trade gap widened.

The current account, the broadest measure of the country’s overseas trade and services flows, was in a deficit of $9.6 billion, or 1.3% of gross domestic product, in the three months ended September, the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement on Friday. The median in a Bloomberg survey of 12 economists was for a deficit of $10.9 billion.

The account was in a surplus of $6.6 billion in the April to June period, and also a surplus of $15.3 billion, or 2.4% of GDP, in the comparable year-ago period.

Digging Deeper

• The latest numbers come on the back of a surge in global crude oil prices which inflated India’s import bill; the RBI cited widening of trade deficit to $44.4 billion from $30.7 billion in the preceding quarter and an increase in net outgo of investment income for the current-account gap
• Income from services decreased sequentially, but increased on a year-on-year basis on robust performance of computer and business services, the central bank added
• Friday’s data, which covers a period when economic activity in India was picking up after a second wave of Covid-19 infections, saw private transfer receipts, mainly representing remittances by Indians employed overseas, rise 3.7% from a year ago to $21.1 billion
• Net foreign portfolio investment was $3.9 billion as compared with $7 billion a year ago; net foreign direct investment inflows amounted to $9.5 billion, lower than $24.4 billion a year ago