Trade deficit narrows as exports, imports fall – Times of India

NEW DELHI: India’s goods exports and imports shrunk by over 8% each in February, weighed down by the gloomy global environment and fall in commodity prices, helping narrow the trade deficit. Despite the recent weakness in numbers, the government is hopeful of ending the current financial year with record exports, which may be in the region of $435-440 billion, topping last year’s level of $422 billion.
Latest numbers released by the commerce department estimated that in February, goods exports fell 8. 9% to $33. 9 billion, the steepest decline since October, while imports were 8. 2% lower at $51. 3 billion. While exports have contracted during three of the last five months, factoring in the revision in data, imports declined for the third straight month.

The government is, however, optimistic due to buoyant services exports, which jumped almost 37% to $36. 9 billion in February, while imports rose 12% to $14. 6 billion. “We have kept the momentum despite global headwinds. Exporters have kept the momentum. Services exports are doing extremely well. We will be doing better than the $750billion target (for goods and services exports),” commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal told reporters.
On the goods side, merchandise exports rose by 7. 5% to $406 billion during April February 2022-23, while imports are estimated to have increased 18. 8% to $653. 5 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $247. 5 billion. The rise in exports was led by petrol and diesel shipments, which were estimated to have soared almost 50% to over $86 billion, although they fell around 29% in February due to softening of oil prices. India’s top export item — engineering goods — however, has had a tough year falling close to 4% during the 11-months ended February and was nearly 10% down in February.
During February, 17 of the top 30 export products saw a decline with electronic goods beating the trend after a 30% rise to $1. 9 billion. During April-February, electronics exports were estimated to be 50% higher at $20. 7 billion. A part of the increase is on account of smartphones, whose exports during April-January are estimated at Rs 67,333 crore (around $8 billion).
On the import front, the decline in February as well as during the year so far has been led by gold, with pharma and fruits & vegetables being the other contributors. During February, gold shipments were estimated to be 45% lower at $2. 6 billion and were almost 30% lower at $31. 7 billion during April-February.

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