FM holds meeting with key officials on Re slide

Faced with the depreciating rupee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday held meeting with top officials and is understood to have discussed steps to check its slide against the US dollar.

The high-level meeting comes against the backdrop of the rupee touching a record low of 58.98 to a dollar on Tuesday.

It was hovering around 58.18 in Wednesday's trade.

Sources said the meeting was attended by Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram, Chief Economic Advsior Raghuram Rajan and Additional Secretary Shaktikanta Das.

The government is considering steps to increase portfolio and Foreign Direct Investment to attract overseas

funds into the country.

Besides, the Finance Ministry is working on measures to attract FII money into the government securities segment.

The rupee has depreciated by over 3 per cent against the US dollar in the last three days. RBI intervened in forex market to stem the slide of rupee on Tuesday.

Since January 1, the rupee value has fallen by 5.5 per cent against the dollar.

Government has been looking at the possibility of raising FDI cap in various sectors, including defence, and has already set up a committee to review the ceiling in other areas.

The rupee decline is being attributed to surge in dollar value against several currencies across the world and India's rising Current Account Deficit, which is estimated to have increased to 5 per cent of GDP in 2012-13.