The Commerce and Industry Ministry revised India’s goods import data for 2024-25, reducing it by $14.2 billion due to double-counting of gold and silver imports.
Errors stemmed from glitches during the migration of SEZs’ trade reporting to ICEGATE, leading to mutually exclusive data being calculated for both Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Domestic Tariff Area (DTA).
Technical Challenges:
ICEGATE (used for all-port trade) and SEZ Online (used for SEZs) captured overlapping transactions.
Migration complexities resulted in a surge in erroneous figures for November 2024 imports of precious metals.
Reconciliation Efforts:
Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) is incorporating revisions for data consistency.
Joint scrutiny by DG Systems, SEZs, and stakeholders aims to address discrepancies and establish a robust mechanism for reliable trade data.
Significance:
Ensures data reliability for policymaking.
Reflects the importance of system migration safeguards for accurate reporting.
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