Indian Trade Deficit Narrows To $27.14 billion in Oct; Commerce Secy Calls WTO Projections Pessimistic

India’s merchandise trade deficit or the gap between import and exports narrowed to $27.14 billion in October, revealed the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Thursday. The trade deficit fell by more than 18 per cent on a yearly basis from $33.43 billion in the year-ago period. However, there has been a slight rise from the previous month, when it touched a five-month low in September.

“Our manufacturing competitiveness, which is coming because of our focus on PLI , is now showing results. Ultimately, any country's exports are only  extensions of our manufacturing competitiveness. So , whether it is industrial policy or our trade policy or our foreign policy, it is yielding results,” said Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal.

India’s merchandise exports stood at USD $39.2 billion and USD $66.34 billion respectively for the month of October, as per the government data. India’s merchandise export has thereby witnessed a double digit growth as it previously stood at USD $33.43 billion , a year ago.

Recently, The World Trade Organization (WTO) revised its projection of world merchandise trade growth to 3 per cent in 2025, which was previously projected at 3.3 per cent. However, Sunil Barthwal added, “WTO projections have been extremely pessimistic.”

Despite several global economic volatility and recessionary pressures in the western markets, Indian exporters have managed to deliver across key sectors like engineering goods, rice, and textile. Navigating through certain restrictions on certain kinds of rice exports, India has managed to boost the rice export by 85 per cent in October, confirmed the Secretary. Rice exports have witnessed the highest growth in October.

Some of the other sectors which witnessed the maximum export growth include electronics goods, engineering goods, textiles, organic and inorganic chemicals. The ministry confirmed that the growth in exports has been primarily driven by non-petroleum products this month. The non-petroleum product exports have been ‘historically high’ in October.

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“All our focus sectors are doing extremely well. If this continues in this manner, then definitely we will be able to cross USD $800 billion of our exports this year,” said the Commerce Secretary.