India will keep both its fiscal and its current account deficits within the government's targets for the current fiscal year (FY14), Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Thursday.
"I have said and I repeat it: this year the fiscal deficit will be contained at below 4.8 per cent no matter what requires to be done. It will be contained at below 4.8 per cent. We will address both the revenue side and the expenditure side," he said at a speech to a private bank in Mumbai.
The Finance Minister also reiterated the country would contain the current account deficit.
Mr Chidambaram has previously said the current account gap would reach $60 billion, well below its early estimate of $70 billion.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday had forecast the current account deficit could fall to $56 billion this fiscal year.
"If I may share a secret: I'm going to try to do it better than $56 billion," Mr Chidambaram said.
The Finance Minister added India would receive a total of $25 billion via two swap windows that provide currency subsidies for banks raising money abroad.
On retail inflation
"Both RBI and the government are trying number of measures to cool inflation... We are looking at various suggestions that we have got," Mr Chidambaram said.
"I am open to suggestions but I am afraid that there is no easy answers to cool retail inflation."
A sharp rise in food prices pushed the annual consumer inflation to 10.09 per cent in October, adding to the pressure for further interest rate rises despite slowing economic growth. The consumer prices had risen 9.84 per cent year-on-year in September. (Read more)
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