The Hindu : All-time rise in exports

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 02, 2003

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National

All-time rise in exports

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Feb. 1. Exports may reach $ 55 billion this year if the 20 per cent boom in growth during the first three quarters of the current fiscal is sustained. This was indicated by the Commerce and Industry Minister, Arun Jaitley, while highlighting the spurt in export growth in the current fiscal.

The provisional trade data released here today shows that the cumulative growth in exports between April and December is 20.36 per cent. During December alone, however, an all-time high of 34.3 per cent growth was recorded. This brought the total inflow during April-December, 2002, to $ 38.1 billion against $ 31.6 billion over the same period last year.

Speaking to newspersons shortly after the data was released, Mr. Jaitley said that this was probably one of the highest ever increases in export growth. And that it would be reasonably possible to achieve the target of $ 50 billion during 2002-3.

Referring to this year's growth target of 12 per cent, he said there was no proposal to revise it. The spurt in export growth appeared to have cut across almost all the sectors, barring products such as tea and coffee. Similarly, there was a regional spurt with substantial growth of 28.6 per cent in exports to South East Asia, the Gulf, Australia and New Zealand.

Mr. Jaitley said the export boom was commendable since countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia had recorded negative export growth over the same period. With 34.3 per cent growth in December, India had surpassed even China's export growth of 30.2 per cent during the same month.

However, the absolute value of China's exports was much higher at $ 261 billion against India's $ 38 billion. Even in terms of cumulative growth rate, China had recorded a 25 per cent rise against India's 20 per cent during April-December.

The surge in exports had taken place despite the rupee having appreciated against other currencies in the region. Conceding that one of the factors could be stockpiling, owing to the threat of war against Iraq, Mr. Jaitley said another reason was that the demand for Indian products had risen in markets as diverse as Latin America and South Asia.

Exports to Latin America had risen by 32 per cent but these accounted for only 2.5 per cent of total exports. On the other hand, exports to South East Asia and Oceania accounted for 41.6 per cent of total exports and these had risen by 28.6 per cent.

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