Second round of checks underway to plug any gaps in petroleum, electronics trade data: Govt source

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal

The central government is conducting another round of checks to address any discrepancies in India’s trade figures for April to November 2024-25, focusing on goods such as petroleum and electronics. This follows a significant downward revision of $11.7 billion in gold imports for the same period, a senior government official said.

This check, being jointly conducted by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), is likely to conclude within a month, the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.

On noticing an unusual surge in imports of precious metals, the Centre had conducted a reconciliation exercise wherein it was observed that due to the migration of data pertaining to SEZs (special economic zones) to the ICEGATE (Indian Customs EDI Gateway) system, figures of precious metals needed revision.

The exercise led to a downward revision in gold imports, in terms of value, to $37.39 billion during April-November.

Sharpest revision

The sharpest revision was seen for November wherein gold import figures were slashed by a massive $5 billion to $9.84 billion on January 8 from the earlier figure released on December 16.

Silver imports too were revised by a smaller $0.48 billion from $0.66 billion in November. For the first eight months of the current fiscal, inbound shipments of this precious metal were revised downward by $0.95 billion to $2.33 billion.

Earlier, think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) pointed out that India’s electronics imports for April to November 2024 were revised from $63.9 billion to $61.2 billion, a reduction of $2.7 billion, as per data uploaded on the DGCIS portal.

In November 2024, electronics imports were adjusted from $7.6 billion to $7.2 billion, reflecting a $0.4 billion drop.

“These revisions highlight significant changes in India's import data, particularly in the gold and silver sectors, impacting overall trade figures for April to November 2024,” GTRI had said.

Changes in data on exports and imports of specific commodities is significant since it has a direct impact on merchandise deficit figures.

For instance, India's trade gap in goods for November 2024 is at around $32.84 billion following the revision versus the record high of $37.84 billion that was reported earlier.