Growth rate of India's exports slipped to 5-month low of 2.35 per cent in August at USD 26.95 billion, pushing up the trade deficit to USD 10.83 billion.
Gold imports jumped significantly to USD 2.03 billion last month, from USD 738.7 million a year ago.
Exporters body FIEO attributed the poor performance of exports to slowdown in European markets.
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"The situation in EU is still bad. The exporters are waiting for the new foreign trade policy. We are expecting measures to boost exports," FIEO president Rafeeq Ahmed said.
Trade deficit in August was highest in the last four months. It was USD 10 billion in April when exports had recorded a low growth of 5.26 per cent.
According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry data, overall imports grew only 2.08 per cent to USD 37.79 billion.
Exports in May and June had registered a growth of 12.4 per cent and 10.22 per cent respectively. In July, export growth slipped further to 7.33 per cent.
For the April-August period - first five months of the current fiscal - exports have grown 7.31 per cent to USD 134.79 billion. Imports, however, have dipped by 2.69 per cent to USD 190.94 billion.
Trade deficit during the five months has reached USD 56.15 billion, lower than USD 70.6 billion in the year-ago period.
Oil imports declined by 14.97 per cent in August to USD 12.83 billion. However, non-oil imports during the month were up by 13.82 per cent to USD 24.95 billion.
