NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India sharply revised lower its April-November 2024 gold import estimate by $11.7 billion in data released on Thursday after figures were miscalculated due to some double counting.
The government has revised its gold import estimate to $37.38 billion from $49.06 billion, trade statistics department data showed.
The downward revision in gold imports is likely to also shrink the nation’s trade gap by at least $11.7 billion but India’s trade department is yet to finalise the revisions, said an official with knowledge of the matter.
The government is yet to make an official statement on what caused the miscalculation in gold imports and neither has it ruled out errors in other categories of imports.
As per current estimates, India’s April-November trade deficit stood at $202.42 billion.
New Delhi said last month its gold imports hit a record high of $14.8 billion in November, a figure that has now been revised down by $5 billion.
The spike widened the country’s merchandise trade deficit to a record level and spooked the South Asian nation’s currency.
India is the world’s second-largest consumer of gold and relies on imports to meet most of its demand, which typically increases during the festival and wedding season in the December quarter.
(Reporting by Shivangi Acharya; editing by Jason Neely and Bernadette Baum)
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