The country’s exports plunged a record 34.57 per cent in March because of a steep decline in shipments of leather, gems and jewellery and petroleum products, dragging the total exports in 2019-20 down to $314.31 billion, official data showed on Wednesday.

Exports in March stood at $21.41 billion, down 34.57 per cent compared with $32.72 billion in the same month last year.

This is expected to be the steepest fall in monthly exports since 2008-09, when shipments dipped 33.3 per cent in March 2009.

Imports, too, contracted 28.72 per cent to $31.16 billion. This is the steepest decline since November 2015, when imports declined 30.26 per cent.

The dip in exports and imports narrowed the trade deficit — the difference between imports and exports — in March to $9.76 billion, the lowest in the last 13 months. It was $9.6 billion in February last year.

Oil and gold imports contracted 15 per cent and 62.64 per cent to $10 billion and $1.22 billion, respectively, in March 2019.

For the full fiscal (2019-20), imports declined 9.12 per cent to $467.19 billion, narrowing the trade deficit to $152.88 billion against $184 billion in 2018-19.

“The decline in exports has been mainly due to the ongoing global slowdown, which got aggravated because of the current Covid-19 crisis. The latter resulted in large scale disruptions in supply chains and demand resulting in cancellation of orders,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.

Commenting on the data, Fieo president Sharad Kumar Saraf said the trade data is along expected lines as exporters were not able to ship goods during the second half of March because of the lockdown, cancellations and delay of shipments and orders.

“Spread of Covid-19 across the globe has not only pulled down the world sentiment to its lowest but has also affected the global supply chain and brought economies in recessionary condition,” he said.