India’s gold import goes up 140% in August
Fall in gold price in the global market and increase in domestic demand ahead of the festival season have led to a steep surge in India’s gold imports to $4.95 billion in August, up 140% from the same month of last year. In August last year, the country imported the yellow metal worth $2.06 billion, according to the government data released on Tuesday. Import of silver also jumped 48.23% last month to cross $360-million mark from the level of $245 million in August 2014, the data said. During the last financial year, India’s total gold import was worth $34.32 billion, which was 19.58% up from the figure of $28.7 billion recorded a year ago. Increasing import of gold puts huge burden on the country’s current account deficit (CAD) which is estimated at $57.5 billion during April-August this year. The trade gap widens when the overall import value exceeds the outbound shipment. Curbing gold import has always been a challenge for policy makers in India, the second largest importer of the precious metal after China. The government revises the import tariff value —the base rate to determine customs duty— every fortnight. The tariff is revised as per the global price so as to prevent under-invoicing. On Tuesday, the Finance Ministry reduced the import tariff value on gold to $359 per 10 grams as the price of the metal fell in the international market. Earlier this month, the tariff value was fixed at $369 per 10 gram.
September 16, 2015 | 1:20pm IST.
to success.