Impact of geopolitical issues like Israel-Iran conflict will be reflected in June trade data

New Delhi [India], July 15 (ANI): India's export data for the month of June 2025 will be released later in the day. Amid Iran-Israel hostilities that ended in a ceasefire, uncertainties on US tariffs and a relative spike in global crude prices are likely to have an impact on June trade data.

In May 2025, India's overall exports, merchandise and services combined, were reported at USD 71.12 billion, marking a 2.77 per cent rise on a yearly basis. The total exports in May 2024 were pegged at USD 69.20 billion.

Exports of merchandise goods declined from USD 39.59 billion to USD 38.73 billion, but services exports rose from USD 29.61 billion to USD 32.39 billion in May 2025.

However, India imported goods and services worth USD 77.75 billion in May 2025, down from USD 78.55 billion in the same month last year.

The trade deficit in May narrowed to USD 6.62 billion from USD 9.35 billion same month last year.

So far in FY2025-26, April-May, India's total exports stood at around USD 142.43 billion, up 5.75 per cent year-on-year. The country's imports also increased year-on-year in April-May, up by 6.52 per cent. Overall imports, both merchandise and services combined, during April-May increased from USD 149.81 billion to USD 157.57 billion.

India's merchandise imports stood at USD 60.61 billion in May 2025, according to official data. As of approximately 8:45 am on July 15, a Probo event contract tracking June's merchandise imports figures--featuring over 2,300 active traders--assigns a 40 per cent probability that merchandise imports for June 2025 will be USD 60 billion or more.

India's total exports have touched an all-time high of USD 824.9 billion in the recently concluded financial year 2024-25. This marks a yearly growth of 6.01 per cent over USD 778.1 billion exports in 2023-24, setting a new annual milestone.

Among various steps the government took to increase exports include the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme in 14 sectors, including electronic goods, telecom, EVs battery to name a few.

The PLI scheme was launched to make Indian manufacturers globally competitive, attract investments, enhance exports, integrate India into the global supply chain and reduce dependency on imports. These seemed to have reaped dividends for rising exports.

The government has set a target of USD 1 trillion of exports in the current financial year 2025-26.

The government is signing free trade agreements (FTA) with various countries to boost exports. The most recent FTA was signed with the United Kingdom and the UAE.

Speaking at the CII Summit on Monday, Commerce and Industry Secretary Sunil Barthwal said that government's priority is enabling global capability centres (GCC), and FTAs will play a major role in that.

"Manufacturing comparative advantage is no longer the benchmark for trade among nations. With the service sector expanding its niche and GCC's becoming a hub for providing services to manufacturing companies, FTAs have become a very critical enabler of the GCC ecosystem".

Reiterating the importance of FTAs, Barthwal noted that the "India-UK" FTA has a special chapter on Innovation, thereby strengthening innovation corridors between partner countries.

He further added that FTAs ensure regulatory practices and institutional mechanisms between two sets of partners that can be harmonized and sustained. (ANI)

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