NEW DELHI: Trade deficit narrowed to a three-month low of $22 billion in Dec as exports contracted 1% to $38 billion, while imports grew almost 5% to $60 billion.
The fall in goods exports in Dec was mainly due to low prices of petrol and diesel, which resulted in oil product exports falling 28% to $4.9 billion, while shipments of gems and jewellery dropped 26.5% to $2.1 billion and chemicals slipped 2.9% to $2.5 billion.
Gold imports are estimated to have soared 55% to $4.7 billion in Dec, while silver shipments shot up 3.1 times to $422 million. In contrast, electronics shipments jumped 35% to a two-year high of $3.6 billion, while readymade garments too saw a 13% rise to almost $1.5 billion.
Commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal told reporters that Indian exports had shown resilience, especially non-oil shipments and underlined that India was not a petroleum exporter. He added that the schemes of govt and the efforts of exporters have helped India perform better than several of its peers in a challenging global environment. Barthwal said that India was on course to achieve goods and services exports of over $800 billion during the current financial year.
On the services front, exports during Dec were estimated to have increased 3.5% to $32.7 billion, while imports rose 12% to $17.5 billion. Barthwal said govt is working on a strategy to boost exports of goods and services to 20 top markets that account for nearly 60% of India’s exports. Commercial wings of Indian missions have been tasked with identifying opportunities, while mapping rival countries and companies that are large buyers of goods and services.
