India yesterday said it would do what was needed to tackle its current account deficit, after heavy oil and gold imports together with muted exports drove the gap to a record high in the December quarter.

In a worse-than-expected reading, the deficit hit $32.63 billion in the final three months of 2012, compared with $22.3bn in the September quarter.

The Finance Ministry said the deficit was likely to moderate in the March quarter if the current trend of improved exports and steady imports persisted. Economists also expect the gap to narrow in the current quarter and beyond.

For April-December, the current account deficit was $71.7 billion, or 5.4 per cent of GDP.

India ran a marginal balance of payments surplus of $781 million for the October-December quarter.-Reuters