New Delhi: India’s exports rose slightly by 1.62 per cent to $33.92 billion, whereas trade deficit widened to $27.98 billion in August owning to the increased crude oil imports, data released by the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday said.

As per the updated data, imports increased by 37.28% to $61.9 billion in August of this year.

According to the preliminary information provided by the ministry on September 3, exports decreased by 1.15 percent in August to $33 billion.

Exports increased by 17.68% to $193.51 billion between April and August 2022–2023. The five-month span of current fiscal year’s imports increased by 45.74% to $318 billion.

In comparison to the same period last year, the trade imbalance increased to $124.52 billion in April through August this fiscal year from $53.78 billion.

In August of last year, there was a deficit of $11.71 billion.

To reach $17.7 billion in August of this year, crude oil imports soared by 87.44 percent. However, according to the report, gold imports decreased by roughly 47% to $3.57 billion.

Conversely, silver imports increased to $684.34 million in the reviewed month from $15.49 million in the corresponding month prior year.

Major commodity groups like coal, coke, and briquettes had increases in import values of 133.64% to $4.5 billion, chemicals by 43% to approximately $3 billion, and vegetable oil by 41.55% to around $2 billion in August.

Furthermore, electronic goods, rice, oil meals, tea, coffee, and chemicals were among the export goods that saw rise in August.

Petroleum product exports increased by 22.76% to $5.71 billion. Similar to this, shipments of chemicals and pharmaceuticals rose by 13.47% and 6.76%, respectively, to $2.53 billion and $2.14 billion.

Among the industries that had negative growth in August were engineering (down 14.19% to $8.3 billion), gems and jewellery (down approximately 3% to $3.33 billion), ready-made clothing of all textiles (down 0.34%), and others.

Engineering (-1.49% to $8.3 billion), gems and jewellery (-3% to $3.33 billion), ready-made clothing of all fabrics (-0.34% to $1.23 billion), and plastic (-1.10% to $747.21 million) were among the sectors that had negative growth in August.