Getty ImagesIndia’s outbound shipments rose 46.43% to $14.06 billion in the first fortnight of this month, led by healthy growth in the exports of engineering, gems and jewellery and petroleum products.
Exports grew 52.39% to $7.71 billion during the first week of this month but the rate slowed to around 40% to $6.35 billion in the second week, a government source said. Non-petroleum exports increased 43.8% in the same period.
Imports grew 98.33% to $19.59 billion during June 1-14, led by petroleum, pearls, precious stones and vegetable oil. Non-oil, non-gems and jewellery imports, an indicator of the strength of domestic demand, expanded almost 70%.
The UAE, US and Italy were the markets which witnessed the steepest rise in exports at 184.7%, 40.4% and 171%, respectively. Imports rose the most from Iraq (342%), Saudi Arabia (356%) and China (47.6%).
Driven by engineering, petroleum products and gems and jewellery, India’s merchandise exports rose 69.35% in May from a year earlier to $32.27 billion, resulting in an eight-month low trade deficit of $6.3 billion. However, compared to May 2020, the trade deficit in goods widened from $3.15 billion, revised trade data released by the commerce and industry ministry on Tuesday showed.
The government expects to post $400 billion of merchandise exports in the fiscal 2022. Goods exports in FY21 contracted 7.3% from the year before to $290.6 billion.
The value of imports was $10.5 billion during the second week of June against $9.1 billion in the first week of the month.
The Federation of Indian Export Organisations has said the order booking position of exporters was healthy and the gradual opening up of global markets and improvement of the situation in the country were expected to push exports growth further.
Source: indiatimes.com
