India: Rupee hits record low against US dollar

The Indian rupee hit a record low against the US dollar on Tuesday as concerns of a wider current account deficit came to the forefront after the country's trade deficit hit an all-time high in June.

Data late on Monday showed India's June trade deficit widened to a record high of $25.63 billion, following a rise in crude oil and coal imports, from $9.61 billion a year earlier.

Analysts and economists are expecting the country's current account deficit to widen to around 3.2 per cent of the GDP in fiscal year 2023 compared with 1.2 per cent in 2022.

The partially convertible rupee closed trading at 79.37/38 per dollar, after hitting a life low of 79.3750. It had touched the previous record low of 79.12 last week and had closed trading at 78.95 on Monday.

"We expect India's widening current account deficit to remain an ongoing drag for INR, with limited offsets from India's FDI and overseas investment inflows, exacerbated by ongoing FPI outflows," Sonal Varma, economist at Nomura, said.

"Therefore, we expect USD/INR to reach 82 by Q3 2022 and 81 by Q4 2022. One risk to our view is the RBI's USD selling intervention, which could slow the pace of INR depreciation."

The domestic share market turned negative towards the end of trade to close down 0.2 per cent, adding to the pressure on the rupee.

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