India's exports, imports witness negative growth in financial year 2019-2020

India's overall exports, including merchandise and services are estimated to be 528.45 billion U.S. dollars during the financial year April 2019-March 2020, exhibiting a negative growth of 1.36 percent over the same period last year, said official trade data released on Wednesday.

Overall imports during this period are estimated to be 598.61 billion U.S. dollars, exhibiting a negative growth of 6.33 percent over the same period last year, added the data.

Merchandise exports in March 2020 were 21.41 billion U.S. dollars, as compared to 32.72 billion U.S. dollars in March 2019, a negative growth of 34.57 percent.

The decline in merchandise exports has been mainly due to the ongoing global slowdown, which got aggravated due to the current novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic crisis, which disrupted chains of supply and demand resulting in cancellation of orders.

Cumulative value of merchandise exports for the period April 2019-March 2020 was 314.31 billion U.S. dollars as against 330.08 billion U.S. dollars, registering a negative growth of 4.8 percent.

Imports in March 2020 were 31.16 billion U.S. dollars, which was 28.72 percent lower over imports of 43.72 billion U.S. dollars in March 2019.

Cumulative value of imports for the period April 2019-March 2020 was 467.19 billion U.S. dollars, as against 514.08 billion U.S. dollars during the period April 2018-March 2019, thus registering a negative growth of 9.12 percent.

Oil imports in March 2020 were 10.01 billion U.S. dollars, which was 15 percent lower, compared to 11.78 billion U.S. dollars in March 2019. Oil imports in April 2019-March 2020 were 129.43 billion U.S. dollars which was 8.15 percent lower compared to 140.92 billion U.S. dollars over the same period last year.

For merchandise the trade deficit for March 2020 was estimated at 9.76 billion U.S. dollars as against the deficit of 11.00 billion U.S. dollars in March 2019.

Taking merchandise and services together, the overall trade deficit for April 2019-March 2020 is estimated at 70.16 billion U.S. dollars as compared to 103.32 billion U.S. dollars during April 2018-March 2019.