Covid Casualty: India's merchandise exports plunge by over 60 pc in April

"The decline in exports has been mainly due to the ongoing global slowdown, which got aggravated due to the current Covid-19 crisis. The latter resulted in large scale disruptions in supply chains and demand resulting in cancellation of orders," the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement.

"Except for 'Iron Ore' and 'Drugs & Pharmaceuticals' which registered a growth of 17.53 per cent and 0.25 per cent respectively, all other commodity or commodity groups have registered negative growth in April 2020 vis-a-vis April 2019.

"Similarly, imports declined by 58.65 per cent to $17.12 billion in April from $41.40 billion reported for the corresponding month of 2019.

"Oil imports in April 2020 were $4.66 billion, which was 59.03 per cent lower in Dollar terms, compared to $11.38 billion in April 2019," the statement said.

"Non-oil imports in April 2020 were estimated at $12.46 billion which was 58.50 per cent lower in Dollar terms, compared to $30.02 billion in April 2019.

"Besides, non-oil and non-gold imports were $12.46 billion in April 2020, recording a negative growth of (-) 52.18 per cent, as compared to non-oil and non-gold imports of $26.05 billion in April 2019."

Consequently, India's trade deficit narrowed to $6.76 billion on a year-on-year basis in April from $15.33 billion reported for the corresponding month of last year.