The Indian account balance is currently returned to the deficit area in July-September 2021 because of higher merchandise import bills, data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 31 showed.
The current account deficit in July-September 2021 was $ 9.6 billion due to a $ 6.6 billion surplus in April-June 2021. In July-September 2020, the current transaction surplus was even greater than $ 15.3 billion.
In Q2Fy22, the trade deficit of Indian merchandise widened to $ 44.4 billion from $ 30.7 billion in the previous quarter because of an increase in imports of 16.5 percent to $ 149.3 billion, RBI data showed. This pushes the current account balance back to the deficit.
“Clean service receipts declined Maring in the previous quarter but increased on the base of the year-to-year, behind the strong performance of computer and business services,” RBI added.
Surplus trading services for July-September 2021 was $ 25.6 billion, slightly lower than $ 25.8 billion in April-June 2021.
For the first half of FY22, India has a current account deficit of $ 3.0 billion. In April-September 2020, the account runs in a large surplus of $ 34.4 billion due to a sharp decline in import of merchandise and low oil prices.