NEW DELHI: India’s merchandise exports shrank for the 13th consecutive month in December 2015 during which trade deficit in goods increased the maximum since August 2015 following 179 percent jump in gold imports.
However, according to the government, the silver lining was the services exports recording a 54.5 per cent rise during April-November 2015 to touch $179 billion, leading to less worry regarding the current account deficit.
Merchandise exports during April-December this fiscal had contracted by 18.06 per cent to $196 billion as compared to $239.9 billion during the same period in the previous financial year.
Of the 30 main items, the exports of 15 of them, including petroleum products and engineering goods, fell in December resulting in the overall merchandise exports contracting 14.75 per cent over the same month in the year earlier period to $22.3 billion.
However, this was the best showing on the export front following the contraction by 10.3 per cent since July and the third best this Merchandise imports meanwhile contracted by only 3.88 per cent to $33.96 billion due to the 179 per cent increase in gold imports to $3.8 billion (the highest since $4.95 billion in August 2015).
