Mumbai: India's trade gap widened to $41.23 billion between April and July this year from $27.35 billion in the same period last year, as the oil import bill zoomed.

For the April-July period, imports rose 34.2 per cent to $100.42 billion from a year earlier while exports grew 24.6 per cent to $59.19 billion.

The import bill soared 48.1 per cent to $27.14 billion in July on the back of huge rise in crude oil imports while the country's exports increased by 31.2 per cent to $16.34 billion.

Exports gained from increased shipments of gems, auto parts, medicines and other manufactured products.

Imports rose to $27.14 billion while exports grew to $16.34 billion, leaving a trade deficit of $10.79 billion in July, official figures showed.

The spike has been aided by high global prices of crude oil in July, which shot up by 69.3 per cent to $9.48 billion from $5.6 billion a year ago.

India is pursuing bilateral and regional trade agreements to boost trade as accelerating inflation and slowing growth crimps spending by customers in the US, Asia's biggest overseas market.

India last week completed free-trade talks with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations aimed at lowering or eliminating tariffs on products. Commerce minister Kamal Nath said he expects the agreement to increase trade between India and Southeast Asia to $50 billion by 2010 from the present $38 billion.

Although India's average export growth in the seven months to July rose to 26 per cent, almost double the average of 13.7 per cent a year earlier, exports to traditional markets like the US and Europe have been generally low compared to its imports.

The US share of India's total exports declined to 13 per cent in the 12 months to March, compared with 15 per cent a year earlier, according to the latest breakdown of overseas sales from the Reserve Bank of India.

Shipments to Asian countries increased to 42.3 per cent, compared with 39.5 per cent, according to the RBI.

Growth in exports during the 12 months to March 31 this year was helped by a diversification of sales in terms of composition and destinations, the central bank said in a report last month.

The commerce ministry has set a target to more than triple the country's share of world trade to 5 per cent by 2020 from the current 1.5 per cent. India is targeting exports of $200 billion in the fiscal year that started 1 April, up 25.8 per cent from $159 billion in the previous year.