The new mechanism to make recording of export-import data more efficient led to the double counting of some of the gold that entered the country via Special Economic Zones (SEZs) resulting in hugely inflated numbers for the month of November.
In fact it was a 331% year-on-year increase in gold imports to $ 14.8 billion reported initially that sparked off the need for a re-look. The revision has brought down the import numbers for November to $ 9.84 billion. Gold imports for other months of this financial year were also revised downwards.
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The double counting occurred as some of the gold imported by SEZs was moved to Domestic Tariff Area (DTA). As goods entering domestic markets are regarded as imports, double counting happened once when gold entered the SEZ and once when it left the zone, officials said.
The possibility of double counting of imports of other commodities is expected to be less as gold is the only major import by SEZs that finds its way to the domestic markets in significant quantities, they said
Earlier all imports and exports by SEZs were recorded on an online system that was managed by NSDL and then from May it was decided to migrate this data to Indian Customs Electronic Gateway (ICEGATE) system for streamlined reporting.
The ICEGATE is the national portal of Indian Customs of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) that provides e-filing services to trade, cargo carriers and other trading partners electronically.
The double counting which occurred on account of migration to ICEGATE has now been largely rectified, but the migration is still underway, the sources said.
Due to the double counting the imports of the yellow metal was overstated by as much as $ 11.73 billion. Gold imports in April-November now stand at $ 37.35 billion from $ 49.08 reported earlier. The deficit for April-November in goods trade would now come down to $ 190.69 billion from $ 202.42 billion reported earlier.
Apart from gold, silver imports from April to November 2024 have been revised down to 2.33 billion from $ 3.28 billion reported earlier while electronics imports have been revised down to $ 61.2 billion from $ 63.9 billion, according to an analysis by Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).
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