India’s April exports rise 19.77%, gold imports widen trade deficit

The Dollar Business Bureau 

India's exports surged up almost 20% during April this year, continuing recovery for the eighth straight month, on the back of good performance by petroleum, textiles and engineering sectors.

However, the trade deficit also recorded a three-fold rise to $13.2 billion, majorly due to a sharp increase in the imports of gold and crude oil during April.

Exports increased by 19.77% to $24.63 billion during the month compared to $20.56 billion during April 2016, as per the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Monday.

“In continuation with the double-digit growth exhibited by exports during March 2017, exports during April 2017 have shown growth of 19.77% in dollar terms valued at $24.6 billion as compared to $20.6 billion during April 2016,” the Commerce Ministry said in a statement. 

“Exports of non-petroleum products and non-gems and jewellery items in the month were stood at $17.7 billion compared to $15.1 billion in the same month last year, up by 17.06%,” it said.

On the other hand, the imports into the country also increased by 49.07% to $37.88 billion during the month.

During the month, exports of petroleum, textiles, engineering goods and gems and jewellery witnessed a growth of 48.77%, 31.72%, 28.21% and 15%, respectively. In addition, the other sectors that contributed to the growth are chemicals, marine products, iron ore, oil meals, cashew and plastic.

Further, the imports of oil increased by 30.1% to around $7.4 billion and non-oil grew by 54.5% to about $30.5 billion.

For the entire fiscal of 2016-17, India’s exports witnessed a growth of 4.7% to around $274.6 billion compared to $262.3 billion in the fiscal of 2015-16.

Imports, for the entire fiscal 2016-17, dropped almost 0.2% to $380.3 billion, lessening down the trade deficit to $105.7 billion compared to $118.7 billion in the same period a year-ago.

“Continuous and consecutive double-digit growth in exports show Indian economy’s robustness and capability to come out from the bad and challenging times,” Ganesh Kumar Gupta, President, FIEO, said in a statement.

“With the implementation of upcoming GST (Goods and Services Tax) and release of the revised Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) will give further push to export growth,” he added.