February exports decline 8.8%, trade deficit at $17.43 billion

India's merchandise exports fell for a third consecutive month in February, pulled down by a slowdown in global demand, while the trade deficit narrowed to its lowest in 13 months. Exports declined 8.8% to $33.88 billion in February and the trade deficit came in at $17.43 billion, official data released Friday showed.

Imports stood at $51.31 billion in February.

Between April-February 2022-23, the country's merchandise exports increased 7.55% to $405.94 billion.


Commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said that going by the trend, India's goods and services exports will cross the $750 billion target in 2022-23. "We have kept the momentum despite the global headwinds. Exporters have kept the momentum. Services exports are doing extremely well. Trade deficit has really come down. Hopefully we will be doing better," Barthwal told reporters here.

He pointed out that the ministry had already started an exercise to fix the target for the next fiscal.

Barthwal said the government has undertaken various measures to push exports, including having detailed meetings with missions abroad.

Overall exports in April-February rose 16.18% to $702.88 billion on the back of a 30.48% rise in services exports. Trade deficit rose 49.6% compared to last year.

Merchandise trade deficit in April-February stood at $247.5 billion, up 43.5%, data showed.

Seventeen of the 30 key sectors grew in April-February FY23 compared to the same period last year. Electronic goods rose 49.54% and petroleum products recorded a 49.5% increase during this period.

Mobile phone exports are expected to cross the $10-billion-mark this year.

Export sectors that recorded negative growth during the 11-month period of this fiscal included engineering goods, gems and jewellery, cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups, and plastic and linoleum.

Sectors which grew included petroleum products, chemicals, pharma, electronic goods, rice, ready-made garments.

Gold imports during April-February this fiscal contracted to $31.72 billion against $45.12 billion in the same period last year.

In the 11 months of current fiscal, crude oil imports rose to $193.47 billion against $140.67 billion in the same period of 2021-22.

Barthwal said the commerce department had shared data on imports of non-essential goods with other ministries and was nudging the industry to source locally or diversify import.

Russia TRADE

Russia imports jumped about five times to $41.56 billion during April-February of this fiscal due to increasing inbound shipments of crude oil from that country, data showed. Russia has become India's fourth largest import source in the first 11 months of the current fiscal.