New Delhi, March 31 -- It's raining external bounties for India as the economy closes financial year 2023-24 on one of the best growth narratives this fiscal - resilient exports and downward trending current account deficit (CAD) or trade deficit, keeping, as the Finance Ministry observes, "India's external account stable despite persistent geopolitical headwinds".

In fact, the bigger news is that the CAD can be expected to cross into surplus territory this year, as barring any untoward surprises in the upcoming March trade data, the merchandise trade deficit in January to March period of 2024 has so far remained capped, largely unscathed by the unscathed by the Red Sea disruptions.

India's CAD narrowed to 1.2 per cent of the GDP in Oct...