India’s sensitive items imports up by 39 percent.

New Delhi, May 18 (IANS) India’s import of sensitive items, mainly farm and dairy products, soared 38.8 percent to Rs.59,981.11 crore ($13.1 billion) in the first 11 months of the last fiscal, official data released Tuesday showed.

The import of sensitive items for April 2008-February 2009 stood at Rs.43,208.84 crore ($9.5 billion), according to the data released by the commerce ministry.

While imports of automobiles, cotton and silk, alcoholic beverages and marble and granite dipped during the period, inbound shipment of items like edible oil, pulses, fruits and vegetables, rubber, spices, milk and milk products, tea and coffee and foodgrains went up.

India’s edible oil imports rose 65.3 percent from Rs.14,530.72 crore ($3.2 billion) in April 2008-February 2009 to Rs.24,025.63 crore ($5.3 billion) during April 2009-February 2010, mainly due to rise in inbound shipments of crude palm oil and its fractions.

However, the gross import of all commodities, including sensitive items, declined 8.5 percent to Rs.1,180,124 crore during April 2009-February 2010 from Rs.1,289,412 crore in the like period a year ago.

The share of import of sensitive items to total imports increased from 3.4 percent to 5.1 percent in the first 11 months of 2009-10.

While imports of sensitive items from Indonesia, China, Brazil, Myanmar, Malaysia, Korea, the United States, Japan, Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, Thailand, Australia and Czech Republic increased, imports from Germany, Cote D’ Ivoire and Tanzania declined.

Source : thaindian.com