[intro music] India's goods trade deficit expanded to US dollar thirty billion in August two thousand twenty-four, the highest level in past ten months, and notably larger than July's trade deficit of US dollar twenty-four billion. For context, the average monthly trade deficit last fiscal year was US dollar twenty billion, while this year we anticipate a figure of around twenty-three billion dollar per month. To summarize, the August versus July trade dynamics, exports were stable, oil imports decreased by dollar three billion and non-oil non-gold imports increased by dollar three billion, effectively offsetting the benefits from the lower oil bill. However, the rise in gold imports added dollar seven billion to the trade deficit. We view this as a one-off situation and maintain our forecast of monthly trade deficits in goods for US dollar twenty-three billion for FY twenty-five.

Gold imports are typically volatile, showing spikes once in every five to six months. The reduction in import duties introduced in the July budget may have prompted this sudden increase. While we expect this trend to continue for one or two more months, we anticipate that the gold imports will eventually stabilize around dollar three billion per month, reflecting fundamental demand. The services surplus held steady at dollar fifteen billion, reflecting a ten percent YoY growth compared to eighteen percent the previous month, which aligns well with our FY twenty-five expectations. Both services receipts and outflows have remained stable, averaging dollar twenty-eight to thirty billion and dollar fourteen to sixteen billion per month, respectively, over the last year. We are sticking to our FY twenty-five trade deficit assumption of seven percent of GDP, up from six point eight percent in FY twenty-four. A current account deficit of around dollar thirty to forty billion, that is point eight to one percent of GDP and a balance of payments surplus of approximately around fifty billion dollar for FY twenty-five. Commodity prices are contained and exports are weakly positive in FY twenty-five, which bodes well for India's external account situation. Despite a strong dollar capital inflow, the RBI's intervention have led to a gradual depreciation of the rupee over the past two years.

Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read all scheme related documents carefully. [outro music]