How was the trade data looking for the month of March 2022 in terms of exports and imports?

In terms of overall numbers the total trade did look fairly impressive for the month of March 2022. For instance, merchandise imports for Mar-22 were up 24.21% yoy at $60.74 billion. At the same time the total merchandise exports in Mar-22 grew by 19.76% to $42.22 billion an all-time monthly record of sorts. Export thrust was driven by petroleum products, engineering, and leather while the trade deficit for Mar-22 stood at $18.51 billion.

For the full year FY22 (12 months), the total exports increased to a record high level of $419.65 billion. At the same time, the total merchandise imports for FY22 also soared to an all-time high of $611.89 billion. This resulted in an overall merchandise trade deficit of $192.24 billion for the full fiscal year. The overall trade, which his the summation of imports and exports crossed the $1 trillion merchandise trade for the first time in Indian history.

Even the services trade numbers were fairly robust in Mar-22. For instance, the export of services for Mar-22 was up 4.64% at $21.76 billion in March 2022. At the same time the services import for Mar-22 were also up by 7.33% at $13.16 billion. For FY22, the total services exports stood at a record level of $249.24 billion, which is 21% above last year levels. Even service imports at $144.79 billion were 23.2% above last year levels.

The overall cumulative deficit from trade in goods and services was less than $7 billion for Mar-22 and for the full year FY22 the overall deficit was less than $88 billion. The big story of the year was not in the numbers. It was about the fact that the quality of India’s export basket has gradually shifted from being dominated by agricultural products and base inputs to value added products like electronics, petroleum products, specialty chemicals etc.