India’s gold imports rise 192.13% in March

Mumbai: India’s gold imports rose by 192.13 per cent to $4.47 billion in March. Gold imports stood at $1.53 billion in January 2024.

Gold imports in 2024-25 in value terms increased 27.38% on year to $ 58.01 billion.  It was at $45.54 billion in 2023-24. That was an increase of $ 12.47 billion over the previous year. In volume terms the imports dropped to 757.15 tonnes from 795.32 billion. Import demand in volume terms contracted just 4.79%.

Between 2023-24 and 2024-25 – international gold prices went up 33.78% to average around $ 76611.73 per kg. According to the World Gold Council in 2024 the gold demand for jewellery contracted 11% on year.

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Silver imports to India in March contracted by 85.4 per cent to $119.3 million. It was down 11.24 per cent year-on-year in 2024-25 to $4.82 billion.

Switzerland is the largest source of gold imports, with about 40 per cent share, followed by the UAE (over 16 per cent) and South Africa (about 10 per cent).

The precious metal accounts for 8 per cent of the India’s total imports. The jump in gold imports pushed the country’s trade deficit (difference between imports and exports) to $21.54 in March. It touched an all-time high of $282.82 billion in the last fiscal.

India is the world’s second-biggest gold consumer after China. The imports mainly take care of the demand by the jewellery industry.

Gems and jewellery exports during the month rose by 10.62 per cent year-on-year to about $3 billion. It was however dipped by 8.84 per cent to $29.82 billion in 2024-25 from $32.7 billion in 2023-24.