November's 'unusual' gold import that pushed up trade deficit revised lower by 34% to $9.84 billion

The revised figures for inbound shipments of gold in value terms are nearly 34 percent lower than what was previously reported on December 16, 2024.

The government has revised its gold import figures for November 2024 to $9.84 billion from $14.86 billion, as per data uploaded on the Commerce Ministry’s Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics on January 8.

The revised figures for inbound shipments of gold in value terms are nearly 34 percent lower than what was previously reported on December 16, 2024.

The surge in gold import that widened India’s trade deficit to a record in November and pushed Rupee to an all-time low was due to an error in calculation, people with knowledge of the matter had told Moneycontrol in December. Officials had double-counted gold shipments in warehouses after a change in methodology.

Another report said officials probably added up imports kept by custodians in free trade zone warehouses with tallies reported by domestic banks that buy the gold from the custodians. While gold imports have been on the rise after the duty cut announced during Union Budget in July 2024, the sharp spike had perplexed many analysts.

A Commerce Ministry source had later said in December that the gold import data would be reconciled, without sharing details of the timeline.

India’s trade deficit had risen to an unprecedented $37.8 billion in November, as gold import showed a four-fold rise to a record $14.8 billion, compared to $3.44 billion a year ago.

The reconciliation in the gold import data could lead to shrinking of the historically high trade deficit for November.