New Delhi: There has been a whopping 23.9 per cent rise in India's trade deficit to 5.5 billion Dollars in April-October 2001 compared to 4.5 billion Dollars during the same period last fiscal.

The widened trade gap is due to 1.54 per cent rise in imports to 30.06 billion Dollars during the period in question against the previous year's 29.6 billion Dollars, while the exports fell 2.45 per cent to 24.5 billion Dollars from 25.1 billion Dollars.

According to the official data, there has been a fall in exports of major items like gems and jewellery, textiles, engineering goods, ores and minerals, leather products and software.

The fall in exports is accompanied by a significant increase in the imports of non- ferrous metals, newsprint, paper boards, crude rubber, machinery, pulses, coal, chemicals, wood products, gold and silver.

Nevertheless, beating the general trend, exports of several commodities particularly agricultural like wheat, sugar, processed foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, and petroleum products, chemicals, machinery, electronic goods showed an upward trend.

Regionwise, there has been a 8.39 per cent fall in India's exports to West Europe during the period to 5.9 billion Dollars from 6.4 billion Dollars.

Exports to the US have fallen by a significant 16.15 per cent to 4.8 billion from 5.7 billion Dollars while those to Russia declined 12.78 per cent to 447.7 million Dollars from 513.3 million Dollars.

Imports from the US rose marginally to 1.8 billion Dollars from 1.7 billion Dollars.

PTI