India's trade deficit at 11-month low in March

A majority of the advances of UCBs was given to MSMEs (micro, small & medium enterprises), amounting to Rs 1.3 trillion in FY23 against Rs 1 trillion in FY22

The overall FY24 wholesale headline inflation stood at -0.7 per cent as compared to 9.6 per cent in FY23

Some had higher inflation every month of the year

India's engineering exports edged up to USD 109 billion in 2023-24 despite a slowdown in some of the major global markets amid geo-political tensions, EEPC said on Monday. India's engineering exports are competitive globally and expected to gain further market share in the coming years, with the country entering into more FTAs, it added. The apex body of engineering goods exporters expects the value of shipments from the sector to rise to USD 300 billion by 2030 and generate a significant number of jobs and foreign exchange earnings in the process. Notably, the engineering sector is the largest contributor to India's overall exports, with a share of 24 per cent, and also contributes approximately 40 per cent of the country's total manufacturing exports. "The engineering goods exports in FY24 surpassed the previous year's numbers despite a slowdown in some of the key global markets, geo-political tensions, Red Sea crisis and high freight rates," said EEPC India Chairman Arun Kumar .

According to commerce ministry data released on Monday, the imports during 2023-24 stood at 677.24 billion, down 5.41 per cent from $715.97 billion in the preceding year

WPI for potato witnessed a jump of 52.96 per cent against a deflation of 25.59 per cent, while for onion 56.99 per cent as compared to (-) 36.83 per cent in March 2023

Over 460 million loans worth of Rs 27 trillion have been given so far under Mudra yojana.

The government has set a fiscal deficit target of 5.1 per cent for FY24-25 to stay on track to meet the glide path set in 2021-22. The government aims to reduce the fiscal deficit to 4.5% by FY26

The report suggests grants from Centre to states have been falling due to no GST compensation funds and lower finance commission grants

But remains well above RBI's 4 per cent target

In case of FDI, the total FDI inflows was over $50 billion in FY20 and its share during the election months of April-May 2019 turned out to be 18.1 per cent

Among Brics countries, Brazil, China, and India have shown a decline compared to the previous month and Russia has seen an uptick

The 10-year govt bond yield surged 7 bps to its highest level in over two months tracking the rise in US Treasury yields

In the current calendar year, the reserves have expanded by 23 billion so far. As of 29 December 2023, India's foreign exchange reserves amounted to $623 billion

The government has tasked the Reserve Bank to ensure inflation remains at 4%, with a margin of 2 per cent on either side

The rating agency's arm said that India's recent consumer price inflation at around 5 per cent was without clear evidence of a trend towards slowing price pressures

The Maldives is currently discussing with India if the island nation can make payments for its imports from the country in Maldivian Rufiyaa, a senior minister has said. A similar arrangement is also being worked out for imports of goods from China, Minister for Economic Development Mohamed Saeed said and noted that annually, Maldives imports goods worth USD 780 million and USD 720 million from India and China respectively. According to the news portal Edition.mv, Saeed was speaking at an event held on the island of Maavah during President Mohamed Muizzu's visit to Laamu Atoll ahead of parliamentary elections on April 21. He stated that if the ruling party were able to secure a majority in Parliament, they would be able to bring the dollar rate back down to official market values within approximately two years. Saeed said his party was now getting all signals that there was a possibility to make non-dollar payments for all of these massive import arrangements. International trade

Moody's Analytics reported that India's output is currently 4% below what it would have been without the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has asked for input from the industry to pinpoint products suffering from an inverted duty structure that puts local manufacturers at a disadvantage