New Delhi: India’s exports grew at the slowest pace in the last five months at 2.35 per cent in August valued around $26.95 billion. This pushed up the trade deficit to $10.83 billion. Imports in August grew by 2.08 per cent to $37.79 billion. Gold imports jumped significantly to $2.03 billion last month, from $738.7 million a year ago. The cumulative receipts (or exports) in services during April-July stood at $53.96 billion, while cumulative payments (or imports) were at $30.09 billion. Services export in 2013-14 stood at 167.01 billion, while imports were at $88.19 billion. Trade deficit in August was highest in the last four months of 2014.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), President M. Rafeeque Ahmed said that the five-months low growth in exports shows that global recovery is weak and non-uniform. “While United States and emerging economies are posting good results, Europe has again fallen into contraction. Another reason may be less spectacular growth in petroleum exports largely on account of softening of crude prices which has helped us in managing imports and trade deficit,” said Mr Ahmed. He noted that greater responsibility now lies on the forthcoming Foreign Trade Policy of the Modi government to steer exports.
“Engineering exports managed to retain a smart growth of over 22 per cent year-on-year, though the overall export consignments from India showed much lesser expansion due to robust business from the United States where there are clear signs of recovery, while the European markets remain tentative,” said Engineering Export Promotion Council India, chairman Anupam Shah. Engineering exports during August this fiscal were $6.65 billion against $5.44 billion in the same month last year.
