On the face of it, the data on Indian exports post a very optimistic picture. Not only was the dip in Indian exports during the recession much slower than the global trends but the recovery has also been much stronger.
While global exports declined by 22.5% to $12.3 trillion in 2009, our exports fell by a much slower 15.4% to $164.9 billion in the year. And during the recovery in the first seven months of 2010, Indian exports have surged ahead by 29.9% to $125.1 billion even as global exports are projected to grow at only around half the pace at 16.3% But despite the recovery in export growth, monthly trends show that the nominal volume of exports still lags behind the pre-crisis months. For instance, despite the pick-up in Indian exports in 2010, monthly exports have hovered in the $16 billion plus range in the most recent months, which is still $3 billion short of the monthly exports of $19 billion plus during pre-crisis months.
And even the pick-up in growth rates is expected to decelerate sharply from October 2010 as the low base advantage of the sharply falling growth rates in the first half of 2009 gets eroded in the coming months of the calendar year.