Trade deficit widens to $16.86 billion in November

16 Dec 2014 Evaluate

Exerting pressure on country’s external sector as well as domestic currency, India’s trade deficit widened to 18-month high of $16.86 billion in month of November, as compared to $9.57 in the same month previous year and $13.36 billion in the previous month October. India’s trade deficit during the first eight months of current fiscal too widened to $100.61 billion as against $96.89 billion in the same period of previous financial year.

During November, trade deficit widened to around double on annual bias as merchandise imports grew at a faster clip due to a sudden spike in the import of gold. India’s imports during November rose by 26.79% y-o-y to $42.82 billion due to the six-fold jump in gold imports. Inward shipments of gold rose by 570% y-o-y to $5.61 billion during the reported month because of the low base, as imports in November 2013 were low due to restrictions imposed by the Government. High gold imports also steepened the increase in non-oil imports to 49.6% y-o-y at $31.10 billion in the reported month. Conversely, oil imports bill fell by 9.7% y-o-y to $11.71 billion in November due to the decline in global crude oil prices. During April-November FY15, India’s imports grew by 4.65% to $316.37 billion from $302.32 billion reported in the same period of previous fiscal.

However, domestic overseas shipments have shown some recovery as exports grew by four month high rate at 7.27% to $25.96 billion in November from $24.20 billion in the same month of previous year. The exports of engineering goods increased by 30% to $6.6 billion and gems and jewellery exports grew by 44% to $3.7 billion in the reported month.  During April-November FY15, the value of India’s overseas shipments increased by 5.02% to $215.76 billion from $205.44 billion in the same period of previous financial year.

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