 "engineering goods exports")
India's merchandise exports rose 9.1 per cent to $38.13 billion in May from a year earlier, helped by an increase in shipments of engineering goods, commercial vehicles and smartphones, government data showed on Friday.
Merchandise imports in the same month rose 7.7 per cent year-on-year to $61.91 billion - widening the trade deficit to $23.78 billion. Economists had expected a deficit of $19.5 billion, according to a Reuters poll.
In April, the trade deficit was $19.1 billion.
Analysts say merchandise exports - which contracted 3.1 per cent to $437 billion in the previous fiscal year - are likely to pick up this year helped by a projected rebound in global trade, government incentives for manufacturing and easing domestic inflation.
Services exports in May were estimated at $30.16 billion and imports at $17.28 billion, compared with $30.33 billion and $16.63 billion respectively in April.
Asia's third-largest economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace of 7.8 per cent in the January-March quarter, helped by a strong performance in the manufacturing sector, and economists expect the momentum to continue this year.
(Reporting by Shivangi Acharya and Manoj Kumar; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
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