India’s exports fell by 11.4 per cent in October — the lowest fall in any month this fiscal.
This is the 13th straight month when exports have fallen. However, the rate of fall in exports has been continuously slowing down since June. The worst fall in exports this fiscal was in May at 39.2 per cent.
The October export data prompted, the commerce secretary, Mr Rahul Khullar, on Wednesday, to project that monthly-wise, the exports will turn positive by January but for the whole year exports will be less than last year.
“I am not looking at entering into the positive territory this fiscal. We will still be short any where between four to seven per cent of what we did last year in terms of total exports. But what we will start seeing, my guess, is sometime in January, this minus 11 turning to positive,” said Mr Khullar.
As per the preliminary estimates, exports during October 2009 were of $12.5 billion as compared to $14.1 billion in the same month last year. During the first seven months of the current year (April to October) exports recorded a decline of 26.5 per cent over last year. The exports during the period were $90.4 billion as compared to $123 billion in April-October 2008.
The sectors which have registered a positive growth on a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis are drug pharma and fine chemicals (6.6 per cent), electronic goods (14.9 per cent-positive from last three months), iron ore (14.2 per cent-positive from last three month), rice (15.2 per cent) and handicraft (128 per cent). On m-o-m basis engineering goods, tobacco, leather and tea have registered negative growth in October
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