PTI cited Mr Kaushik Basu CEO of World Bank as saying that India's economy could expand by around 6% in 2013, attributing the current slowdown to global factors.

Mr Basu at CD Deshmukh Memorial Lecture said that "It is very-very difficult time for the world. The World Bank's rough expectation is that in the calendar year 2013, India is going to see growth rate of just short of 6%."

Officially, the World Bank is slated to release global growth projections on January 15th.

Amid global slowdown impacting India, the government had lowered the country's economic growth for the 2012-13 fiscal to 5.7% to 5.9% from its earlier projection of 7.6%. The GDP had expanded by 6.5% in 2011-12, which was nine year low.

On India's current account deficit which widened to record 5.4% of GDP in the July to September quarter, he said that though it is a cause of worry, there are market factors which will come into play to stabilize it.

He said that "India has proper floating exchange rate, it is not as worrying because there are automatic market stabilizer which will begin to kick in."

The CAD, which represents the difference between exports and imports after considering cash remittances and payment, was USD 18.9 billion in the same period of a year ago and USD 16.4 billion in the Q1.