Aided by an improvement in the global economic situation, India’s exports witnessed a growth for the third month in a row, rising 6.97% in March at $30.8 billion against $28.8 billion in the same month of previous year. However, overall exports declined 1.76% to $300.6 billion in 2012-13.
Imports also slipped 2.87% to $41.16 billion in March, leaving a trade deficit of $10.31 billion from $13.5 billion in March last year.
The growth in exports in the last three months of the last fiscal helped reduce the trade deficit, which had peaked to $20 billion in January, the second highest figure ever in a month.
On an annual basis, the trade deficit widened to $190.91 billion against $183.3 billion in the previous fiscal. Exports had entered the positive zone after a gap of eight months in January when it recorded a growth of 0.82%.
Commerce secretary SR Rao said exports are gradually picking up and hoped the current trend will continue.
“Export performance has started picking up. For March, the export performance has picked up by a slightly robust figure compared to the previous two months. We expect this trend to continue,” Rao said.
He said if the current trend continued, India’s exports are expected to grow by about 10% this fiscal.
On trade deficit, Rao said that it has come down slightly “which is a good news. Given a very weak performance for major part of the year, I think in the last 3-4 months, we really covered a good deal of ground, which is not sufficient but certainly there is progress in exports”.
During 2012-13, imports grew 0.44% to $491.48 billion, leaving a trade deficit of $182.1 billion from $183.3 billion in 2011-12.
Oil imports in March 2013 declined 16.56% to $13.32 billion. During the previous fiscal, the imports, however, grew 9.22% to $169.25 billion from $154.96 billion in 2011-12.
Non-oil imports in March increased 5.41% to $27.83 billion, but, during 2012-13, it dipped 3.62% to $322.23 billion.
Meanwhile, announcing sops for exporters, commerce & industry minister Anand Sharma said, in 2012-13, India’s exports to Asia, Africa and Latin America touched $195.27 billion, accounting for 65% of the total export basket.
“This is indeed a development with significant import as South-South trade is assuming a new dynamics. “Apart from this, value added exports have got a centrality in our export basket as engineering exports accounted for $57 billion, textiles accounted for $26 billion and pharmaceuticals at $15 billion”, he added.