The country's exports rose 4.3 percent in January this year, year-on-year, to 22.1 billion dollars. According to Commerce Ministry data, imports climbed 10.7 percent, to almost 32 billion dollars in January. Higher imports widened the trade deficit to 9.8 billion dollars during the month. But the trade deficit, or the difference between imports and exports for the April 2016 to January 2017 period improved to 86.4 billion dollars. Gold imports plunged 29.9 per cent, to 2 billion dollars in January.