New Delhi: Goods exports jumped over 26% to $43.8 billion, the fastest pace of expansion since June 2022, due to a surge in electronics, engineering goods and petroleum products, while lower gold shipments helped moderate import growth to 14%, and narrow the trade deficit to $26.9 billion, a five-month low.Latest data released by the commerce department on Tuesday pegged imports in Aug at $70.7 billion, compared with $62 billion a year ago.
Trade deficit at 5-month low
“We have not just continued but improved upon the export growth in Aug… During the five months, imports are being propelled by strong domestic economic expansion, rising energy requirements and the critical inputs needed to sustain the rapid growth of the manufacturing sector,” commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal told reporters.Describing the data as robust, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said: “These numbers reaffirm the growing strength and competitiveness of our manufacturing ecosystem, with our exporters expanding India’s footprint across global markets.”Services too are estimated to have done well, with exports rising 24.7% to almost $39 billion, while imports were 37% higher at $21.4 billion.Agrawal said that during the first five months of the fiscal, export of goods and services was near the $400 billion mark. In rupee terms, exports saw a more rapid growth, which was the impact of the depreciation of the Indian currency, but Agrawal said that multiple factors were at play and not just a weaker currency. He also said that the expansion was driven by an increase in volumes in around 40% of the major product categories with several seeing value and volume growth.In Aug, petroleum exports jumped 63% to $6.8 billion. Engineering goods were up 25% at $12.3 billion, while electronics shipments soared almost 90% to $5.6 billion. On the import front, gold shipments fell 58% to $2.3 billion, while silver more than doubled to $1 billion. Along with electronics, whose imports jumped over 40% to $13.7 billion in Aug, and petroleum, silver accounted for the entire $8.5 billion increase in the import bill.
