Exports up 5.26% in April; trade deficit falls to $10.1 billion.

NEW DELHI: This is the first piece of good news for the economy in the new financial year. India's exports grew 5.26% in dollars terms in April 2014 from a year ago, reversing two months of decline.

Imports declined 15% in dollar terms, clearly indicating that industrial recovery remained elusive. The combined effect of higher exports and contraction in imports helped shrink the trade deficit to $10.1 billion in April compared with $17.7 billion a year ago.

The data raises hopes that the improvement in the current account deficit in the last financial year will continue in the new year. Exports were valued at $25.6 billion in April while India's imports were worth $35.7 billion, according to data released on Friday by the commerce and industry ministry. Exports had contracted 3.2% in March.

"The new Foreign Trade Policy should initiate measures for competitive manufacturing in the country both for augmenting exports and substituting imports," M Rafeeque Ahmed, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said in a statement, urging the government to set a target of $750 billion in exports in by 2019.

India's exports in FY13 amounted to $312 billion.

Non-oil imports in April were estimated at $22.7 billion, 21.5% down from a year ago. This is an indication of the strength of the Indian economy, and the contraction indicates that the expected industrial economic recovery has not materialized.India's current account deficit is expected to improve to around 2% of GDP in FY14 from an all-time high 4.8% of GDP in FY13.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com