India’s merchandise trade deficit registered a sharp decline to USD 24.53 billion in November from USD 41.68 billion in October despite the uncertainties in the global market triggered by the US tariff turmoil, data released by the Commerce Ministry on Monday showed.
Merchandise exports for November 2025 stood at USD 38.13 billion, while imports were estimated at USD 62.66 billion. Services exports grew from USD 32.11 billion to USD 35.86 billion, while imports rose slightly to USD 17.96 billion during November compared to USD 17.25 billion in the same month of the previous year.
Overall exports in November stood at USD 73.99 billion, to register a growth over the corresponding figure of USD 64.05 billion in the same month of the previous year. Imports slipped marginally to USD 80.63 billion in the reported month over USD 81.11 billion in November 2024.
Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal attributed the reduction in imports as driven by gold, oil and coal shipments.
“Gold imports have declined in November by about 60 per cent, which has helped narrow the country’s trade deficit,” he remarked.
“November has evened out the losses in October, and the April-November figure for exports during the current financial year is higher than the corresponding figure for the same period of the previous year.”
The Central government has implemented measures, including GST rate cuts, a promotion package to diversify export markets and introduced labour reforms to cushion the economy from the impact of punitive tariffs imposed by the US on India’s exports.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump had a telephonic conversation last week following the visit of a high-level team of US officials to Delhi for trade talks.
Meanwhile, India is also working on diversifying its export market. As part of this strategy, the government is looking at as many as 300 products, including engineering goods, pharma, agri, and chemicals, which can be exported to Russia with the two countries targeting a USD 100 billion trade by 2030, an official said.
At present, India’s exports of these goods to Russia stood at USD 1.7 billion, as against Russia’s USD 37.4 billion in imports.
