Budget 2014-15: Govt surprises by keeping gold import duty at 10 per cent

The government astounded gold bars markets by observance the introduce duty on gold and silver unmoved at 10 per cent in its Union Budget for 2014-15, a move likely to limit out of the country purchases by the second-biggest bullion shopper and further hearten smuggling.
India's major bullion trade group had on Wednesday said the economics minister would likely cut the gold introduce duty to 6 per cent in the just now elected government's first budget arrangement.
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Indian bullion futures jumped 2 per cent on Thursday, widening the premium over global prices which had pointed on the probability of a duty cut.
"This will basically force jewellers, who were on the sidelines pregnant a duty cut, to re-stock," said Sudheesh Nambiath, senior analyst with Thomson Reuters GFMS.
Premiums should get better to $20-30 an ounce in the next few days, he said, against $10 on Wednesday.
India, anxious to orderly a wide open present account shortage, took a slew of actions last year to limit require for bullion, its second-biggest import after oil.
Besides the duty compulsory by the finance ministry, India's central bank also imposed the so-called 80-20 rule that necessary a fifth of all gold imports be re-exported.
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The rules have curly supply and pressed premiums up to as high as $160 an ounce in December.

FY'14 CAD narrows to 1.7% of GDP at $32.4 bn

Mumbai: Helped by a sharp restraint in imports, particularly of bullion, India's current account deficit (CAD) sharply pointed to 1.7 percent of GDP, or USD 32.4 billion, in FY'14 from 4.7 percent in FY'13, Reserve Bank said Monday.

"Contraction in the deal shortage, attached with a increase in net invisibles' receipts, resulted in a lessening of the CAD to USD 32.4 billion, or 1.7 percent of GDP, from USD 87.8 billion, or 4.7 percent of GDP in 2012-13," it said.

For the March sector, CAD, a calculate of the inflow and loss of foreign currency, stood at USD 1.2 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP, as beside USD 18.1 billion, or 3.6 percent of GDP, in the same epoch previous fiscal, the RBI said.

Trade deficit narrows as exports rise 13.47% in October

India's exports rose 13.47 per cent to $27.27 billion in October while imports fell 14.5 per cent, helping narrow the trade deficit.

Imports stood at $37.8 billion, leaving a trade deficit of $10.56 billion as against $20.2 billion in October 2012, official data showed.

"This is a consistent growth in exports...The US is doing extremely well and Europe is also doing well," Commerce Secretary S R Rao told reporters here.

Gold and silver imports in October fell to $1.3 billion from $6.8 billion in the same period last year.

In April-October, exports grew by 6.32 per cent to $179.38 billion, while imports during the period contracted by 3.8 per cent to $270.06 billion.

Rao expressed confidence that the country would achieve the $325 billion target for the current fiscal.