By Shivangi Acharya and Manoj Kumar
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s merchandise trade deficit was at its widest in five months in April, according to government data released on Thursday, as imports of petroleum products jumped, limiting the impact of an increase in exports to the United States.
India’s April trade deficit at $26.42 billion was higher than the $20 billion expected by economists in a Reuters poll, and rose from $21.54 billion in the previous month.
Exports stood at $38.49 billion in April, while imports were $64.91 billion, compared with $41.97 billion of exports and $63.51 billion of imports in March.
India’s oil imports rose to $20.72 billion in April from $19 billion in March. Gold imports fell to $3.1 billion in April from $4.4 billion the previous month.
The trade deficit was the highest since November 2024.
“The trade deficit is wider than expected, with a surprising increase in oil and electronic goods imports,” said Madhavi Arora, economist at Emkay Global.
“It is possible that component imports in the latter category have increased as orders for final exports may be under process and reflect in data in future months.”
Global trade and supply chains have been upended by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes on its trading partners.
India’s purchasing managers’ index had indicated an increase in export orders. But official trade data shows that outbound shipments in April were still lower than in March, suggesting that exporters made limited efforts to front-load volumes to ship to the U.S. during the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs imposed on India and other nations.
On Thursday, Trump said that a deal with New Delhi is close.
Exports to the U.S. jumped 27% to $8.42 billion in April from $6.61 billion a year earlier.
Among product categories, electronic goods, including mobile phones saw the sharpest year-on-year jump of 33% in April.
Reuters earlier reported that tech giant Apple had stepped up production of iPhones in India to beat tariffs.
In April, the U.S. had imposed 145% additional tariffs on Chinese imports, attracting a tit-for-tat 125% Chinese duties on U.S. imports, bringing trade between the world’s two biggest economies to a standstill.
India’s trade secretary Sunil Barthwal said trade talks between India and the U.S. were progressing well.
(Reporting by Shivangi Acharya and Manoj Kumar; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Joe Bavier, William Maclean)
