News- India’s Merchandise Trade Indices have been revised with a new base year FY 2022–23 to reflect structural changes in trade patterns.
About Merchandise Trade Indices
- Merchandise Trade Indices measure changes in the unit values and quantities of India’s exports and imports over time.
- Published by: It is compiled and published by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
- Purpose
- It measures changes in the unit values and quantities of India’s exports and imports.
- It indicates external sector price movements and supports economic analysis and national accounts compilation.
- Usage
- Government institutions use these indices for economic analysis and policy formulation.
- The National Accounts Division uses them as deflators for estimating real exports and imports.
- The Reserve Bank of India uses them for external sector and balance of payments analysis.
- Ministries, research organisations, and analysts use them for trade policy review and empirical research.
- Base Year: The base year has been revised from FY 2012–13 to FY 2022–23 (2022–23 = 100).
- Revision Committee: The revision was recommended by a committee constituted by DGCI&S under the chairmanship of Prof. Nachiketa Chattopadhyay, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
- Indices Compiled
- The revised series includes monthly, quarterly and annual export and import unit value indices.
- It includes trade indices classified by Principal Commodity, Standard International Trade Classification (SITC), and Broad Economic Categories (BEC).
- It includes bilateral and region-wise trade indices for India’s top 20 export and import partner nations.
- It includes Terms of Trade indices (Net, Gross and Income Terms of Trade).
Improved Methodology: Methodological refinements have been introduced in the selection of the common commodity basket and in the treatment of missing unit values, as explained in the committee report.
