India hopes to contain gold imports below last year's level

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India hopes to contain gold imports well below 845 tonnes that were shipped last year, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Wednesday, a week after the RBI restricted imports further by tying imports to exports volumes.

"We hope to contain gold imports at a level well below last year's total imports of 845 metric tonnes and save considerable amount of foreign exchange, which will have a positive impact on the current account deficit," Chidambaram said.

Since the beginning of the year, the government has also raised the import duty on gold to rein in a current account deficit that hit an all-time high of 4.8 percent of GDP in 2012/13.

Scarce imports have sent premiums soaring, as traders try to puzzle out new central bank rules announced on July 22.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)