Assocham to reach out to 4.5 lakh members over coronavirus containment

Assocham on Friday said it is reaching out to its member base of over 4,50,000 from the industry and trade to work in close coordination with the Centre and state governments in dealing with coronavirus pandemic and follow medical and health protocols prescribed by the authorities.

"With strong foreign exchange reserves of USD 487 billion as on March 6, 2020 and narrow current account deficit of USD 1.4 billion (as per the latest Q3 2019-20 data), India can confidently face the challenges of financial stability arising from global turmoil," Assocham Secretary General Deepak Sood said.

He highlighted that the RBI data for April-December, 2019-20 clearly points out that Foreign Direct Investment considered the most stable, contributed USD 32 billion for the period while the Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPI) who keep shuffling portfolios in the financial markets, made less than half of this at USD 15 billion.

"Our sources of foreign exchange are more of stable nature. With the country's import bill set to go down, we should continue to have a comfortable current account position, providing a fundamental strength to the Indian economy," Sood said.