India’s exports declined 10.3 per cent year-on-year to USD 34.98 billion in May this year, the government data showed on Thursday. Imports also declined 6.6 per cent to USD 57.1 billion against USD 61.13 billion recorded in the same month last year, the data showed.
Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said headwinds still continue on the global trade front.
The Department of Commerce and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade are working on an exports strategy and focusing on 40 countries, Barthwal added.
“Non-petroleum and non-gems & jewellery exports in May 2023 were USD 26.22 Billion, compared to USD 27.30 Billion in May 2022. Non-petroleum, non-gems & jewellery (gold, silver & precious metals) imports in May 2023 were USD 35.88 Billion, compared to USD 35.29 Billion in May 2022,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.
Aditi Nayar, chief economist and head (research and outreach) at ICRA, said, “While lower commodity prices led to a 6.6 per cent YoY contraction in merchandise imports in May 2023, some key items such as iron and steel, machine tools, machinery, electronic goods, fertilisers and pharma witnessed a YoY expansion, which led to a sequential rise in overall imports, thereby taking the merchandise trade deficit to a five-month high of $22.1 billion in that month from $15.1 billion in April 2023.”
She added that May typically tends to see higher imports of several items such as fertiliser, gold, fuels, etc vis-a-vis April. The available trade data for April-May 2023 suggests that the CAD is likely to widen to about $10-12 billion in Q1 FY2024 from nearly $2 billion expected in Q4 FY2023, while remaining manageable at around 1.2 per cent of GDP.
(With PTI Inputs)
Comments
0 comment