Indian Gold Imports Double to $3.80B in December YoY

This is the thirteenth month of contraction.

The Commerce Ministry trade data further showed that oil imports during December 2015 dipped by 33.19 per cent, year-on-year, to United States dollars 6.65 billion.

Exports decreased 14.75 percent in December from a year ago to $22.29 billion.

Besides, owing to a sharp devaluation of the Chinese yuan since August previous year, China’s exports have become cheaper, affecting Indian engineering goods, which account for about a quarter of the country’s total merchandise exports.

Richa Gupta, senior director, Deloitte India, said, “Non-oil ex-gold imports picked up pace sequentially, giving credence to the fact that at least urban demand was on the upswing”. The surplus stemmed from United States dollars 3.145 billion in exports and USD 2.524 billion in imports, the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade reported this Monday (18). 227.744 billion, which was 3.11 per cent lower than the level of such imports valued at $ 235.054 billion in April-December 2014-15. With the decline in exports and a surge in gold imports, India’s trade deficit widened to $11.7 billion in December from $9.8 billion in November. During that period, its exports to China fell to Dollars 6.2 billion from USD 7.9 billion a year ago, reflecting a severe imbalance in trade between the world’s two most populous countries.

“The export figures, which reflected the continuous decline for more than over a year now, seems to be now gaining lost ground”, said S.C. Ralhan, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).

Ralhan said the government needs to take steps for the removal of inverted duty structure anomalies.

There is a global slowdown and India is well integrated with the world economy and there would an impact of the slowdown on the exports, she told reporters here. Modi also launched Saturday a 100 billion rupee ($1.5 billion) fund and a three-year tax break among a slew of measures to encourage the country’s entrepreneurs as part of the “Start-up India” program.

Imports of vegetable oil (34%), pearls and other precious stones (1.9%), electronic goods (21%) and gold (179%) increased during the month.

The USD 621 million surplus was the result of USD 3.145 billion in exports and USD 2.524 billion in imports.