- | 1:00 pm
Govt lowers gold import figure for November by $5 billion
Analysts have called for a prompt explanation of the steep import data revisions for transparency
The commerce and industry ministry on Wednesday revised gold import figures for November down by $5 billion to $9.9 billion after finding discrepancies in calculations, reducing the trade deficit for the month.
The government is yet to officially provide an explanation for the counting error, and revisions to the gold and overall trade data are likely to be published next week, when monthly trade statistics for December will be released, Bloomberg reported, citing people aware of the issue.
Trade data updated on the site of the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics on Wednesday showed gold imports during November were at $9.84 billion against a record $14.86 billion that the commerce ministry published earlier.
The website also showed gold imports during April-November were adjusted to $37.39 billion from $49.08 billion.
The revised gold import figure for November would bring down the overall trade deficit to about $32 billion from around $38 billion earlier, while also reducing India’s current account deficit.
The expanding deficit had put pressure on the rupee, which has been on a declining spree, weakening 3% in the past year. The domestic currency fell to a record low of 85.92 against the dollar on Thursday.
Bloomberg had earlier reported that officials had double-counted some gold imports, leading to the overestimation.
Analysts have called for a prompt explanation of the steep import data revisions for transparency.
Such “drastic revisions without a clear explanation erode trust in official statistics,” especially since no changes were made to the data compilation rules in November, they said.
“Was there an error in the initial data compilation, or did DGCI&S uncover discrepancies after further verification?”said Ajay Srivastava, founder of trade think tank Global Trade Research Initiative, adding that “if there was a significant error in gold import data, could similar discrepancies exist in other commodity figures or for other time periods?”
More Top Stories:
