Roughly $69 billion left India’s borders in exchange for gold between April 2024 and February 2025. That figure, reported by the Times of India, represents a staggering volume of physical demand and it is dragging the country’s trade deficit wider at a time when policymakers are already contending with currency pressure and inflationary undercurrents. To put that number in perspective, India’s total goods exports for the same period hovered around $400 billion. Gold alone accounts for a significant chunk of the import bill, competing with oil and electronics as one of the country’s largest outbound payments. When a ... (full story)