Exports declined by 5 percent to 7-month low of 26 billion US dollars in October 2014

Merchandise exports declined by 5 percent to 7-month low of 26 billion US dollars in October 2014 resulting into widening of trade deficit to 13.3 billion US dollars in October 2014.
This was revealed by the India’s Foreign Trade (Merchandise) data released by the Department of Commerce, Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry on 17 November 2014.
The decline in exports occurred mainly on account of fall in shipments of petroleum products, electronics, engineering items, gems & jewellery, and iron ore.
On the other hand, driven by gold imports, total merchandise imports increased 3.16 percent to 39.45 billion US dollars in October 2014. The gold imports surged 280 percent to reach 4.1 billion US Dollar during the month of October 2014.

This widened the trade deficit to 13.3 billion US Dollar in October 2014 from 10.59 billion US Dollar in October 2013. However, the gap was lower than 14.24 billion US Dollar trade deficit in September 2014
Cumulative total exports in the April-October 2014 period stood at 189.79 billion US Dollar which was 4.72 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of the 2013.
The cumulative value of imports for the April-October 2014 period was 273.55 billion US Dollar which was 1.86 per cent higher than imports in the same period in 2013.
The trade deficit during April-October 2014 period was at 83.75 billion US dollar, lower than the deficit of 87.31 billion US Dollar in April-October 2013.