Trade Deficit widens to record $26.1 Billion in June

India’s merchandise trade deficit widened to a record $26.18 billion in June, wider than the government’s earlier estimate of $25.63 billion, after the Commerce Ministry revised upwards both the exports and imports figures for the month. The previous record monthly merchandise trade deficit was $24.3 billion in May. Last month’s trade deficit was almost three times as wide as the $9.6 billion shortfall recorded in June 2021.

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Key points:

• While goods exports increased 23.5% year-on-year in June to exceed $40.1 billion (the preliminary estimate was $38 billion), imports outpaced, surging 57.5% to $66.3 billion on the back of higher purchases of coal, gold and petroleum products.
• The surge in imports was driven by coal, gold and petroleum products as estimated earlier, but there were significant upward revisions for each. Coal imports jumped almost fourfold to $6.76 billion while gold imports almost trebled to surpass $2.7 billion. Petroleum imports climbed 99.5% to $21.3 billion.
• Excluding petroleum and gems and jewellery, imports were up 38.3% at $38.53 billion in June. Stripping out the same product categories from the export data, meant exports of other products grew by a single digit of 8.65% to about $28 billion.

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