India’s imports of goods hit a record $610.2 billion in FY22, up 54.7% yoy and 28.6% higher than pre-Covid levels in FY20, preliminary trade data for March shows. released by the Department of Commerce on Monday.
Imports increased 20.8% yoy to US$59.07 billion in March 2022 and increased 87.7% from March 2020. Exports for the month were US$40.38 billion , which brought the deficit to $18.7 billion for the month.
With exports nearly $418 billion in FY22, the trade deficit for the year was $192.4 billion, 87.5% above FY21 levels and 19.3% above pre-pandemic levels.
“The non-oil and non-gold/jewellery trade deficit was $55 billion or 1.7% of GDP in FY22, which is about a quarter of the total goods trade deficit,” said ICRA Chief Economist Aditi Nayar, which expects the current account deficit to have narrowed to below $19 billion in the January-March 2022 quarter.
