Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) Revises Merchandise Trade Indices Base Year to FY 2022–23

Key facts

• The Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, has revised the base year of India’s Merchandise Trade Indices from FY 2012–13 to FY 2022–23 (2022–23 = 100).
• The revision was based on the recommendations of a committee chaired by Prof. Nachiketa Chattopadhyay, Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.
• The updated series includes Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual Indices for Export Unit Value and Import Unit Value.
• The revised indices cover Principal Commodity (PC) classification, Standard International Trade Classification (SITC), and Broad Economic Categories (BEC).
• The DGCI&S will now compile Bilateral and Region-wise Trade Indices for the top 20 export and import partner nations of India.
• The indices track three types of Terms of Trade: Gross terms of trade, Net terms of trade, and Income terms of trade.
• The National Accounts Division (NAD) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) uses these indices as deflators for estimating real exports and imports in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compilation.
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) utilises these indices for external sector assessment, balance of payments analysis, and evaluation of price competitiveness.
• The compilation methodology uses the Laspeyres Formula for weighted averaging of items and commodity groups.