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India’s government is still finalizing revisions to gold import figures and trade data after discovering discrepancies in their calculation last month, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, a unit of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, published figures on its website on Wednesday showing gold imports were about $5 billion, or a third, lower than previously reported in November.
The figures aren’t finalized yet and revisions to the gold and overall trade data will likely be published next week, alongside monthly trade statistics for December, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
Gold imports for November were $9.84 billion, data on the DGCIS website showed Wednesday, compared with a record $14.86 billion published previously by the commerce ministry, which releases the official trade statistics. Based on the new figure, India’s trade deficit for November was $31.83 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations, compared with a previously reported $37.8 billion.
The reported change in gold import data could bring down the country’s current account deficit by 0.1% of gross domestic product for this fiscal year, Madhavi Arora, lead economist at Emkay Global Financial Services, said.
India’s widening trade deficit has put pressure on the currency, which weakened almost 3% over the past year and hit a record low of 85.87 per dollar on Wednesday.
While the government hasn’t officially shared a reason for the data discrepancy, Bloomberg had reported that officials had earlier double-counted some gold imports, leading to an overestimation. The commerce ministry didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
“Since the November gold import numbers are less alarming, the sentimental impact and pressure on the rupee will be somewhat lower,” Aditi Nayar, chief economist, ICRA, said.
The DGCIS website showed April-November gold imports were lowered to $37.39 billion from $49.08 billion, while other items remained broadly unchanged.
--With assistance from Shinjini Datta and Bhaskar Dutta.
(Updates with analysts’ comments in fifth and eighth paragraph)
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