India’s goods trade deficit in January widened to a three-month high of $34.68 billion from $23.43 billion a year ago.Imports, driven by gold and silver, rose 19% to $71.24 billion while exports rose a meagre 0.6% to $36.56 billion. The previous high for imports was $76.1 billion in October 2025. India’s January exports to the US fell 21.7% to $6.59 billion from last year, hit by 50% tariffs levied at the time. They have been reduced to 18%. The trade deficit was $25 billion in December.Gold imports in January rose more than fourfold to $12.07 billion while silver rose 127% to $2 billion from the year ago. Sequentially, exports contracted 5.08% from $38.51 billion in December.Sixteen of the key 30 export sectors, including the labour-intensive ones of leather, textile, and apparel declined. Merchandise imports stood at $59.77 billion in January 2025. Non-petroleum and non-gems, and jewellery exports, a measure of the strength of domestic demand, contracted 0.24% to $32.78 billion in January.Services exports in the month are expected to reach a record high of $43.9 billion, up 26.3% on-year, as per official estimate. Commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal said merchandise and services exports have remained in positive territory. “There have been a lot of positive developments in the last one month,” he said. “We will be nearing $860 billion overall exports in the current fiscal of which above $410 billion would be in services exports. We hope to be on the same trajectory for the remaining two months.” India’s exports “remain northwards,” both in goods and services, he said.Cumulative exports, including merchandise and services, in the April-January period, rose 6.15% to $720.76 billion. India’s imports from China were $108.18 billion in April-January FY26. Agrawal said January exports were driven by services. “Services exports are a strong silver lining. The service estimate was more than $5-6 billion extra in December,” he said. In goods, the key growth drivers were engineering goods, petroleum products, meat, dairy and iron ore while the UAE, China, UK, Italy and the Netherlands were the key export destinations.“India’s goods imports unexpectedly swelled by 19.2% YoY to $71.2 billion in January, the second highest monthly print after the $76.1 billion seen in October 2025,” said ICRA chief economist Aditi Nayar. “This surge was entirely driven by gold imports, which ballooned to $12.1 billion in the month from $2.7 billion in January 2025. While oil imports remained flattish compared to year ago levels, non-oil, nongold imports rose by a relatively modest 4.9% in the month.” Owing to the sizable expansion in goods imports and a subdued 0.6% growth in such exports, the merchandise trade deficit widened materially to $34.7 billion in January 2026 from $23.4 billion in the year-ago month, Nayar said. Nearly 83% of the expansion can be attributed to increased gold imports.“Gold imports recorded a 1.83% growth in value terms during AprilDecember 2025, primarily driven by a 24.62% increase in unit prices, despite 18.29% decline in quantity import, indicating that the rise in import value is largely attributable to the higher price effect,” the commerce and industry ministry said. Silver import growth reflected the combined impact of higher prices and larger volumes.“The data for January highlight the pronounced impact of US tariffs on export performance, while also hinting at early signs of market diversification. The downturn is concentrated in the US market rather than a global slowdown,” said a trade expert. Between April 2025 and January 2026, India’s exports to the US fell 21.3% to $6.6 billion from $8.4 billion, dragging total merchandise exports down 4.4% to $36.6 billion from $38.3 billion. However, exports to the rest of the world remained resilient, suggesting that tariff barriers in the US market have driven India’s recent export slowdown, said think tank GTRI.Read more at:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com//news/economy/foreign-trade/gold-silver-import-surge-pushes-indias-january-trade-deficit-to-3-month-high-of-34-68-billion/articleshow/128435582.cms (ICE MUMBAI)

Fonte notizia: The Economic Times