Trade Deficit widens to record $26.1 Billion in June

Sakshi Education

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.
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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