India’s exports drop 2.83% in November; imports down by 4.33%

Representational image of paddy stocked at a market in Uttar Pradesh. Indian exports saw a decline in November 2023 | Photo Credit: Reuters

India’s goods exports slipped back into contraction to drop 2.83% in November to $33.9 billion, while imports fell by a sharper 4.33% to $54.48 billion.

Compared to October, however, goods exports were up 0.9% while imports had slid 16.22% from the record high of $65 billion in October.

Consequently, the trade deficit for November eased sharply to $20.58 billion from the all-time high of $31.5 billion in the previous month.

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal asserted that trade is not one-way traffic and should be seen in a global context. “GDP growth is not high in many countries and interest rates have not gone down. Although global trade is suffering, we are holding fort and our exports have beaten the global trends in 2023 by a significant margin.”

“The green shoots we saw in the last couple of months have stabilised. Exports have been positive in November and higher than the overall exports of the same month last year,” he said, referring to the total tally of merchandise exports and estimated service exports last month. The actual services exports numbers will be available later.