India's current account deficit may fall to $45 bn: StanChart

Standard Chartered Bank Thursday sharply lowered its forecast for India's Current Account Deficit to $45 billion from its earlier projection of $72 billion, due to positive foreign trade numbers.

In a research note, the bank said it has revised downward its forecast on India's current account deficit to $45 billion, or 2.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product from $71.8 billion, four percent of the GDP, pegged in its earlier report.

India's trade deficit fell to $6.7 billion in September, much lower than our estimate of $10.5 billion, the StanChart bank said. This was the best monthly print in the last 30 months.

With softer trade deficit numbers for the last four months, the second quarter trade deficit figure dropped to $30 billion from $50.5 billion in the first quarter of the current financial year.

"This improvement gives us increased confidence in our view that India's current account current account deficit problem has been overblown," the bank said.