Exports grow for 2nd month; up 9% in Dec

New Delhi, Mumbai: A day before announcing some additional export incentives, commerce minister Anand Sharma on Monday said that overseas sale of Indian goods in December, 2009 stood at $ 14.6 billion, a rise of 9% over November. This is the second month in running that exports have registered an increase but it came in the back of a low base seen in the same month of the previous year—exports in December 2008 stood at $ 13.4 billion.

Releasing the export figures at a banker’s conference in Mumbai, Sharma called for continuation of fiscal stimulus measures till the economy was fully out of the woods. “We have to ensure sustained strong growth. After that we can withdraw. It shouldn’t be abrupt,” Sharma said. Exports registered growth for the first time in 13 months during November by expanding 18.2% at $ 13.2 billion.

“Although the country’s exports have moved to a positive terrain in the past two months, the economy is yet to recover from the losses resulting from 13 months of continuous fall in exports. There is growth again, but we cannot be complacent,” Sharma said. The commerce minister added that one has to look at the overall scenario, before deciding if there has been any recovery.

Sharma’s comments came at a time when the finance ministry is engaged in preparing the Union Budget for 2010-11, where some of the fiscal incentives, including that for exports, are likely to be clawed back. “I can’t give a wrong message to the finance minister. This (export growth) could be on account of base-effect,” said Sharma.

The commerce ministry is likely to announce some more measures on Tuesday to boost exports from sectors that have not responded to earlier fiscal incentives. According to sources, some labour intensive sectors like leather, handicrafts, apparels and ready-made garments could get be get additional duty free scrips for exporting to emerging markets in Africa, Latin America, Oceania and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Officials from the department of commerce and the directorate general of foreign trade have finished a sectoral review to ascertain the impact of the export incentives. “The review has been complete. We have to see how the leather, handicraft and apparel, ready-made garments are doing,” Sharma said.

Talking about soaring food-price inflation, Sharma said that this definitely remains as a major concern to the government and in some cases there have been speculative build ups. He affirmed said that despite...