Months of miscalculations in precious metals import data pushed India’s trade deficit to a record high in November 2024, sending the rupee plummeting to a record low.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry said in a statement on Friday (January 10, 2025) that it had revised import data from April to November after discovering the discrepancy resulting from the change to a new transmission system of data.
Preliminary estimates released earlier this week show that gold imports for November totaled $9.84 billion, which is a third less than previously announced for the month. The ministry said Thursday it was still verifying the data.
These figures were revised after an “unusual increase” in precious metal imports in November, the ministry said. After analyzing the figures, he found that the new data transmission system had miscalculated imports.
This miscalculation led to a quadrupling of gold imports to a record $14.8 billion in November, widening the trade deficit to $37.8 billion. While gold imports have risen steadily since the government cut duties on the precious metal to 6% from 15% in the July budget, the sharp increase has intrigued analysts and raised questions about the accuracy of the data.
According to Bloomberg calculations using available preliminary revisions, India’s trade deficit for November was $31.83 billion.
The ministry said it revises its data “from time to time”, based on “recently received data, changes in the respective months and quality corrections where necessary”.
Economists said the revision would lead to a reduction in the current account deficit but would not have a big impact on the local currency. Even though the Indian rupee could see further weakness due to a stronger US dollar, it is still expected to “outperform” other Asian emerging market currencies in 2025, said Aastha Gudwani, chief India economist at Barclays Bank Plc.
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