New Delhi, Nov. 11 The country’s merchandise exports shrank to $12.5 billion – down by 11.4 per cent, for the thirteenth month in a row in October due to sagging overseas demand on the back of the economic slowdown in the developed world.
Briefing newspersons here on the interim trade figure for October, the Commerce Secretary, Mr Rahul Khullar, said the country’s exports during October 2008 were $14.1 billion.
Exports during the first seven months of the current fiscal (April to October) fetched $90.4 billion, down by a massive 27 per cent, against $123 billion in the corresponding months of last fiscal. He said engineering goods, minerals, mica, coal, tobacco and tea were the laggards which caused the export decline to persist though there were some improvements in the export of drugs, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals, electronic goods and iron ore as compared to the previous year.
Mr Khullar was optimistic that if the current trend continues “export growth is likely to transit to a positive phase by January 2010”. Stating that there was no need to withdraw the stimulus to the sector as of now, Mr Khullar said “near sign of nascent recovery cannot be the basis for withdrawing the stimulus”. He, however, said there is no need for further sops to the export sector.
However, reacting to the latest trade figure for October, the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO) President, Mr A. Sakthivel, expressed the hope that exports would show a good phase in the first quarter of next calendar year, preceding positive vibes in the US and Europe for good sales of Indian products in the Christmas and New Year Eve. He, however, sought immediate increase in duty drawback rates to provide price competitiveness to Indian exporters.
Source : Business Line