India's trade deficit for April widened from last year as the marked increase in imports driven by gold, outpaced the modest improvement in exports, data released by the Ministry of Commerce revealed on Monday.
The trade gap widened to $17.787 billion from $14.041 billion in the same month last year. The deficit figure grew more than 72 percent from March's $10.315 billion.
Imports jumped 10.96 percent year-on-year to $41.951 billion driven by massive imports of gold. Imports of gold and silver surged nearly 138 percent to $7.5 billion. Buyers in India, the world's biggest consumer of the precious metal, apparently took advantage of a sharp fall in the price of gold last month. Exports grew 1.68 percent from last year to $24.164 billion. The country's oil imports rose 3.92 percent, while non-oil imports increased 14.90 percent.
The Reserve Bank of India has been expressing concern over the increasing gold imports, which has led to a high current account deficit.
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