India's July trade deficit in goods at $4.83 billion - trade ministry

Cargo containers are seen stacked outside the container terminal of JNPT in Mumbai

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India posted a trade deficit of $4.83 billion in goods in July, after reporting its first trade surplus in over 18 years in the previous month, data released by the government showed on Friday.

Merchandise imports contracted 28.40% in July to $28.47 billion from a year ago while exports fell 10.21% to $23.64 billion, data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday showed.

Total merchandise imports fell by more than 46% to $88.91 billion during April-July while exports were down 30.21% from the year-ago period to $74.96 billion, the data showed.

(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed, Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Nick Zieminski)