India’s trade statistics showed:
a) A trade deficit of $10.4 billion that’s about flat from the previous month
b) a 16% drop in imports and a 20% drop in exports (whoa).
Worrisome: Non oil imports also drop
Crude oil imports were lower than last year due to the drop in crude. But we saw a fall in Non oil imports. Note that Gold imports went up, so obviously its the other stuff that dropped.
Oil imports have ticked up from the previous month, but as you can see, non-oil imports have fallen to where they have contracted from a year earlier.
Tragic: Total Trade drops 18%
While the “flat” deficit is probably good news, it’s not really good that we’re now trading substantially lower than a year ago. As much as 18% below last year’s levels (imports+exports).
(Feb was low, but then it had only 28 days). May with 31 days has no such excuse.
Our View
Terrible news. Lower non-oil imports (-2%) and much lower exports (-20%) is not a good thing for the economy at all.
