India’s merchandise exports in August saw a robust annualised growth of over 26% to $43.81 billion, outpacing about 14% growth in imports at $ 70.67 billion, thus narrowing the trade deficit on the back of policy measures such as trade diversification, bilateral deals and curbs on unproductive imports of commodities like gold.
Services data for August are estimates, a conservative extrapolation of the previous month’s numbers, as RBI releases figures for the services sector with a lag. First time you will see, this is lower than the export growth,” he added. Overall growth of exports (goods and services combine) accelerated further to 16.58% in July this year to $ 82.42 billion, and by estimated 25.4% to $82.68 billion in August, he said on Tuesday while releasing latest trade data for the month. Speaking about inward shipments, he said merchandise imports in August 2026, has been at $70.67 billion as compared to $ 61.96 billion in the same month last year. “That means a growth of 14.1%… One of the reasons for narrowing of the trade deficit is a sharp fall in imports of gold in August 2026, according to experts. Import of gold fell by nearly 58% to $ 2.3 billion in August 2026 as compared to $ 5.44 billion in August 2025. Even on a sequential basis, it fell by 45% as against $ 4.16 billion in July 2026. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 10 urged people to avoid non-essential foreign travel and postpone gold purchases for a year. The government on May 13 raised customs duty on precious metals, including gold and silver, to 15% from 6%, to reduce imports and conserving foreign exchange for essential imports such as energy and fertilisers amid the protracted war in West Asia .
Stating that India’s export growth momentum has been strong in the first four months of the current financial year, commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal said: “Export growth momentum [has] accelerated further in August. Cumulative trade data of both merchandise and services showed that exports in the first quarter (April-June) of 2026-27 “climbed by over 13% to $236.28 billion,” he said.
