MUMBAI, Dec 15: The Indian rupee continued its downward spiral against the US dollar on Thursday, hitting another record low due to concerns over the eurozone debt crisis and weak domestic data.

The Indian unit Asia’s worst performing currency this year fell to a low of 54.3 to the dollar, extending a slide that has seen it lose more than 20 per cent of its value against the greenback in 2011.

India’s central bank has said it will act to prevent a downward spiral of the rupee, which has been hit by global financial uncertainty, as investors abandon riskier emerging market currencies for safe havens.

The rupee has also come under severe pressure from negative domestic data showing a slowdown in economic growth, a contraction in industrial output, stubborn inflation and rising fiscal and current account deficits.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said it will make a “definitive statement” on the rupee at its mid-quarter monetary policy review on Friday.

The rupee’s freefall has fired up import costs, posing a fresh challenge to the government in its bid to bring down inflation which is currently running at close to 10 per cent.

Economists and forex dealers said the sharp depreciation had come as a surprise and was likely to persist as long as Europe failed to resolve its sovereign debt troubles and domestic reforms were not enacted.—AFP