Gold imports up 85 percent to nearly 3 billion dollars in January
Posted on: 16/Feb/2016 10:26:53 AM
Our country is the largest importer of gold in the world, the demand of which mostly comes from the jewellery industry. India`s gold imports have gone up by 85.16 per cent to USD 2.91 billion last month. According to the Commerce Ministry data in January last year, imports were worth USD 1.57 billion. The prices have been declining at global as well as domestic markets. However, the higher import impacts the country`s current account deficit (CAD).For the entire 2014-15 fiscal, gold was the third-largest commodity imported to India after crude oil and electronic items. Gold imports stood at USD 34.32 billion last fiscal.
In terms of volume, India - the world`s second-biggest gold consumer - had imported around 900 tonnes in 2014.India imported 850 tonnes of gold during January-September period of 2015, as against 650 tonnes in the year-ago period.
In the July-September quarter of the current fiscal, CAD rose to USD 8.2 billion or 1.6 per cent of the GDP, from 1.2 per cent or USD 6.1 billion in the April-June quarter.
