FM to visit US to woo investments

Faced with a high current account deficit and declining forex reserves,finance minister P Chidambaram in his forthcoming US visit will meet foreign institutional investors in San Fransisco to woo investments.

Faced with a high current account deficit and declining forex reserves,finance minister P Chidambaram in his forthcoming US visit will meet foreign institutional investors in San Fransisco to woo investments.

The minister will be in the United States to attend the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank beginning October 9.

While in the US,Chidambaram would also meet his American counterpart Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other officials on October 13,sources said.

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Following that he would meet FIIs and hedge fund managers at San Fransisco on October 14.

The minister is scheduled to meet large fund managers during his US visit next month to attract investments, an official source said.

His US visit comes at a time when the country is facing pressure on the external sector with the foreign exchange reserves dipping by over $17 billion since March,2013 to $274.8 billion as on September 6.

Besides,the government and the Reserve Bank are also struggling to curb volatility in the forex market and arrest declining value of rupee,which had touched life time low of 68.86 to a dollar on August 28. The rupee on Friday closed at 63.48 to a dollar.

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The Prime Ministers chief economic advisor C Rangarajan has said the government may have to drawdown $9 billion of foreign reserves to bridge the current account deficit (CAD).

The CAD,which is the difference between the inflow and outflow of foreign exchange,had soared to a record high of $88.2 billion or 4.8 per cent of GDP in 2012-13.