India’s trade deficit widens year-on-year to $17.49 billion in January this year, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal announced on Thursday.
While it has widened annually, it has narrowed to a nine-month low sequentially.
India’s January 2023 trade deficit stood at $17.03 billion and $19.8 billion in December 2023. A Reuters poll of economists had pegged the figure at $20 billion.
Merchandise exports in January rose 3.12 per cent on an annual basis to $36.92 billion, up from $35.8 in the same month a year ago. Merchandise exports in December were $38.45 billion.
Meanwhile, merchandise imports in January were $54.41 billion, up 3 per cent year-on-year from $52.83 billion in January last year. Merchandise imports figure in December stood at $58.25 billion.
In January, services exports were $32.80 billion as against $28 billion in the year ago period. Meanwhile, in December, services exports were $27.88 billion.
Services imports in the previous month were $16.05 billion as against $14.83 billion in January 2023. In December, imports were at $13.25 billion.
During April-January FY24, exports dropped 4.89 per cent to $353.92 billion while imports slipped 6.71 per cent to $561.12 billion.
As per the government shared data, the overall trade deficit improved by 37.11 per cent from $111.99 billion in April-Jan of FY23 to $70.43 billion in April-Jan of FY24.
Barthwal said despite global uncertainties, “we have” recorded positive growth.
The government also highlighted that the main drivers of merchandise export growth in January 2024 can be attributed to petroleum products, engineering goods, iron ore, electronic goods, drugs and pharmaceuticals among others.