New Delhi, Oct. 29 From a peak 39 per cent decline in May this fiscal, the country’s export fall seems to be decelerating.
Exports in September are down 13.8 per cent at $13.6 billion against $15.8 billion in the corresponding month of 2008.
The Commerce Secretary, Mr Rahul Khullar, told reporters here that even as exports in the current year remain in the negative territory the worst appears to be over.
This is because there is a distinct evidence that some segments such as gems and jewellery, petroleum products, drugs and pharma, chemicals, iron ores, man-made fibre (non-cotton), fruits and vegetables, tobacco, rice and marine products are doing better in the first half of the current fiscal as compared with their performance in the first half of last fiscal when overall export growth was cranking at 40 per cent.
Mr Khullar also clarified that the revised export figure for 2008-09 is $185.1 billion and not $163-165 billion as estimated earlier.
The revision was necessitated because in the collection of data by the DGCI&S (Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics) there were some “cracks” that did not take on board the export receipts of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and this was subsequently “cleaned up”.
He said that this could be seen from substantial jump in gems and jewellery exports. Overall, the export slowdown during the first half of the current fiscal was 28.5 per cent at $77.9 billion, against $108.9 billion in the corresponding half of the previous fiscal.
No precise timeline
Though it is difficult to predict a precise timeline for export growth to transit to a positive phase, Mr Khullar said that his own “guess is that we are going to end up this year between $165 billion and $175 billion with a margin of error (mostly plus in view of the late arrival of data) of $3-5 billion”.
He said that to reach last year’s level of $185 billion, exports have to grow 40 per cent a month from October 2009 to March 2010, while it would require 30 per cent growth a month to hit the level of $170 billion, considering the fact that the first half export receipts amounted to $78 billion.
The full details of the foreign trade figures, including imports and trade deficit, for September would be released on November 2.
Source : Business Line