India cuts Nov gold import data by $5 billion

Chennai: The government has revised the gold import data for the month of November, bringing it down by $5 billion, the largest revision for any commodity in history.

The Director General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics updated its website on Wednesday, cutting India's November 2024 gold import by $5 billion from $14.8 billion to $9.8 billion. This change has sharply lowered the year-on-year growth in gold imports for November, reducing it from 331.4 per cent reported earlier during the release of the trade data in December to 186.2 per cent.

As per the trade data published last month, gold imports had more than doubled in November from $7.13 billion reported in October.

The spike in gold imports also had widened the country's merchandise trade deficit to a record $37.84 billion in November.

Despite the revision, gold imports in the 11 months of 2024 touched a record $47 billion against $42.6 billion in the entire calendar year of 2023.

“In the interest of transparency, the government must clearly explain the rationale behind this revision. Was there an error in the initial data compilation, or did DGCI&S uncover discrepancies after further verification? Without a clear explanation, such revisions erode trust in official statistics, especially when no changes were made to the data compilation rules in November,” said Ajay Srivastava, founder, GTRI.

This also raises concerns about similar discrepancies in other commodities.

As India’s trade data is closely monitored by investors, policymakers, and international agencies to assess the health of the economy, unexplained revisions can damage the credibility of India’s economic reporting, he added.