The goods trade deficit for June fell 8.8% from levels seen last June as well as this May, to $20.13 billion. This is the second month in a row that the deficit has been over $20 billion after a four-month streak of lower gaps between imports and exports, but economists aren’t too worried about the scale of the deficit yet relative to last year’s higher gaps.India’s goods exports plummeted 22.02% year-over-year in June to hit an eight-month low of $32.97 billion, while imports fell 17.5% to $53.1 billion, as per data from the Commerce Ministry.June marked the seventh time in nine months that India’s merchandise exports have declined, but the dip in outbound shipments was the sharpest in this period.Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal emphasised that the fall in exports appeared steep partly due to the strong base from last June, when India recorded its highest monthly shipments of $42.3 billion.There was also an inventory build-up last year to cope with supply-chain disruptions. Now, export promotion councils are reporting those inventories are gradually winding down, and orders are starting to pick up again from July, and we hope that translates into good news for exporters,” he said, stressing that the government is doing whatever it can to spur trade growth.In absolute terms, petroleum products accounted for half the fall in exports this June,” noted Aditi Nayar, chief economist at ICRA. Just nine of India’s top 30 major export as well as import items recorded positive growth in June.
