New Delhi: India's merchandise exports in October surged 42.33 per cent to $35.47 billion on the back of good performance by the engineering and petroleum sectors, as per provisional data released by the government on Monday.
The exports stood at $24.92 billion in October 2020 and $26.23 billion in October 2019.
India's merchandise exports in October 2021 was $35.47 billion, an increase of 42.33 per cent over $24.92 billion in October 2020 and an increase of 35.21 per cent over $26.23 billion in October 2019, as per an official statement.
The merchandise imports surged 62.49 per cent to $55.37 billion from $34.07 billion in October 2020. It was $37.99 billion in October 2019.
As per the data, the trade deficit in October 2021 was $19.9 billion as gold imports almost doubled to $5.1 billion. The gap between imports and exports have totalled $98.71 billion during April-October 2021.
Outward shipments of engineering goods, which accounted for 28.19 per cent of total exports in October, increased 50.7 per cent year-on-year to $9.38 billion.
Exports of petroleum products too were up 231.63 per cent on annual basis at $5.19 billion. Another major chunk of exports, which comes from the gems and jewellery sector, rose 44.24 per cent to $4.22 billion.
Exports from the labour-intensive textiles sector, which accounts for 3.5 per cent of the total outward shipments, increased by 6.4 per cent to $1.25 billion in October.
India also exported electronic goods worth $1.34 billion during the month under review against $966 million in October 2020.
On the import front, the inbound shipments of 'petroleum, crude and products' soared 140.5 per cent to $14.43 billion from $6 billion in October 2020. Import of electronic goods stood at $6.81 billion (up 23 per cent) and machinery, electrical and non-electrical segment stood at $3.54 billion (up 41.78 per cent).
As per the provisional data, imports of 'coal, coke and briquettes' increased 118.92 per cent in October this year to $3.31 billion.
The updated trade data will be released later in the month.
The gold imports stood at $5.1 billion this October compared to $2.49 billion in the year-ago month, an increase of 104.25 per cent.