India’s merchandise export has witnessed a plunge in March for the first time ever in five months widening the trade deficit over global trade and the U.S moves to review a programme allowing duty-free imports of goods.
The US Trade Representative also said earlier on Thursday, that it has launched reviews over concerns that India and Indonesia were not complying with Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme on market access.
India’s merchandise export has fallen 0.7 percent in March to $29.1 billion, widening the trade gap to $13.7 billion due to an upsurge in imports, as indicated by government data on Friday. Import has risen to $42.8 billion (7.2 percent) in March.
Coming to year fiscal close, goods exports has risen 9.8 percent to $302.8 billion while imports have risen $459.7 billion accounting for 19.6 percent.
Delhi is worried over concerns that its export of engineering goods and services to U.S and China could be worst hit following the possible slowdown in the global trade this year.Analysts believe the US reviewing duty-free imports from India would also affect exports for the current fiscal beginning April 2018/19.