FE Editorial : Twin deficits again
The Financial Express: Feb 20 2013, 01:11 IST
The finance ministry’s decision to cancel the last tranche of Rs 12,000 crore of market borrowings—due this Friday—sends out a powerful signal as to how determined the government is to stick to its revised 5.3% fiscal deficit target. Though the actual announcement came as a surprise, the ministry’s attempts to curb expenditure have been visible—in December, the government actually had a positive saving of R8,230 crore—for many months now. Indeed, one of the reasons for the extremely tight liquidity situation is the refusal of the government to spend money. But while the fiscal deficit looks comfortable, at least for the current year, the current account deficit (CAD) looks quite worrying. Indeed, that’s why credit rating agency Moody’s put out a warning Monday, calling it a “credit negative increase in a trend of higher trade and current account deficits”. What’s common to the twin deficits, however, is the importance of the government coming up with the right mix of policies in the year ahead to stimulate growth and to clear investment bottlenecks.
In the case of the fiscal deficit, for instance—tax-to-GDP fell from 11.9% of GDP in FY08 to a likely 10.3% this fiscal—increase in growth rates will help raise revenues. A slowing of corporate profits, for instance, has translated into lower tax-to-GDP ratios for corporate taxes; ditto for the slowing of top line growth and its impact on excise and other collections. And thanks to poor policy that has resulted in large petroleum under-recoveries, corporate tax collections have taken another big
Previous Story Column : A growth budget all the way Next Story Merely being a Maoist sympathiser cannot rule you out of a promotion
Reader's Comments| Post a Comment
Be the first to comment.
