India’s trade deficit is widening and the prime driver behind that is the rising energy prices, owing to geopolitical conflicts and supply bottlenecks. Neelkanth Mishra from Credit Suisse’s has a solution to salvage the situation. It involves bringing down imported blueberries and avocados.
India is a net importer of commodities and energy, prices of both of which have surged over the past few months. Data shows that between 2015-21, India imported 88% of its annual consumption of oil and 29% for coal in 2020.
Mishra: “It [energy] has become substantially more expensive than it used to be and therefore it is important to change our import basket. So if we cannot and we should not be bringing down our imported energy by that volume, then we need to bring down the imported avocados, we need to bring down the imported blueberries and I know they are small numbers, but wherever we are dependent on imports which are to a slight extent discretionary, we need to bring down those imports.”
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com