Srinagar, June 17: Despite rising gold prices, the import of yellow metal in India has seen a sharp increase in 2011-12.
The gold and silver import at US$ 61.5 billion has recorded a growth of 44.4 per cent during 2011-12 as compared with 43.5 per cent in 2010-11.
Non-oil non-gold & silver imports during 2011-12 at US$ 271.5 billion have recorded a growth of 22.7 per cent as compared with 29.0 per cent in the preceding year.
Trade deficit during 2011-12 amounted to US$ 184.9 billion, as compared with US$ 118.7 billion during 2010-11.
Exports in India have recorded a 20.9 per cent growth in 2011-12 at US$ 303.7 billion. A year earlier, the country had seen 40.5 per cent increase in exports.
“While the exports performed well during the first half of 2011-12, there was significant deceleration in the second half as global trading conditions deteriorated mainly reflecting weakening of world demand inter alia caused by euro zone crisis,” RBI press release said today.
It said during 2011-12, imports at US$ 488.6 billion registered a growth of 32.1 per cent as compared with 28.2 per cent in the preceding year.
“There has been a significant rise in import of petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL), gold and silver and machinery,” it said.
Giving details it said the petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL) imports at US$ 155.6 billion in 2011-12 showed a higher growth of 46.9 per cent, largely reflecting increase in international crude oil prices, as compared with 21.6 per cent a year ago.
“The average price of Indian basket of crude oil during 2011-12 stood at US$ 111.6 per barrel, which was 31.1 per cent higher than US$ 85.1 per barrel during 2010-11,” it added.
“Trade deficit during 2011-12 amounted to US$ 184.9 billion, as compared with US$ 118.7 billion during 2010-11,” it said.
“The disaggregated data on commodity-wise merchandise exports indicate that during 2011-12 (April-December), engineering goods, petroleum products, chemicals, textiles, gems & jewellery and agricultural products contributed more than 88 per cent of India’s exports.”
“While the share of exports to countries of European Union in India’s total merchandise exports declined marginally, the same of OPEC countries declined by around two percentage point during April-December 2011 over April-December 2010,” it said.
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