India’s merchandise trade deficit has hit an all-time high of $37.8 billion in November 2024 compared to an average of $23.5 billion in April-October 2024. In November 2023, the trade deficit was $21.31 billion and it was the same in the previous month of October. was 27.14 billion dollars.
The deficit widened mainly due to higher imports to $69.95 billion compared to $66.34 billion in October and $55.06 billion in November 2023. The country saw an unprecedented increase in gold imports during the month to $14.9 billion, which largely contributed to higher imports.
“Such high levels of gold imports are likely due to festive and wedding-related demand and are unlikely to sustain in the coming months, which will help cool the upcoming trade deficit print,” said Aditi Nair, Chief Economist, ICRA.
As far as exports are concerned, shipments fell by 4.83 percent to $32.11 billion in November 2023 compared to $33.75 billion in November 2023. November exports were also sequentially lower than the $39.2 billion recorded in October.
However, service exports increased by 27 percent to $35.67 billion and service imports increased by 29 percent to $17.68 billion. The overall trade deficit reached $19.84 billion compared to $6.89 billion in the previous month.
Adverse trade deficit prints in November 2024 India’s current account deficit will widen sharply in Q3 of FY2025 to 2.8 percent of GDP, the highest level in 2025, compared to earlier expectations of 2 percent will be More than two years. We have also revised our FY2025 projection for CAD to 1.4 per cent of GDP from earlier 1 per cent,” said Nair.
Meanwhile, during the period of April-November, the cumulative export of goods increased by 2.17 percent to 2.84 billion 31 million US dollars, which was 278.26 billion dollars in the same period of the previous year. the end