The country's current account deficit, CAD, nearly doubled, to 8.2 billion dollars, or 1.6 percent of GDP in the October to December 2014 quarter, from 0.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. This was shown by Reserve Bank of India data released today. But on a sequential basis, the current account deficit narrowed from 2 per cent of GDP in the June to September 2014 quarter. The current account deficit is the gap between foreign exchange earned and spent. The Reserve Bank of India attributed the narrowing of the deficit on a sequential basis to a pick-up in services exports, improvement in net earnings through travel and software services, and lower net outflows under primary income profit, dividend and interest. However, the merchandise trade deficit widened to 39.2 billion dollars during the October to December quarter, as exports declined 7.3 per cent, while imports fell 4.5 per cent. There was a net accretion of 13.2 billion dollars to foreign exchange reserves during the quarter, which was double the 6.9 billion dollars accretion in the preceding quarter. During the first nine months of the current fiscal, the current account deficit shrank to 1.7 percent of GDP, from 2.3 percent of GDP during the year-ago period.