The improvement in exports has been mainly on account of better performance by sectors like engineering goods, textiles and gems and jewellery.
Making a marginal recovery, India's exports entered the positive zone after a gap of eight months, recording a growth of 0.82% to $25.58 billion in January.
The improvement in exports has been mainly on account of better performance by sectors like engineering goods, textiles and gems and jewellery.
The exports have been contracting since May 2012.
The trade deficit, which is the difference between imports and exports, however, continued to be cause of concern. It soared to a three-month high of $20 billion.
The country's exports had stood at $25.37 billion in January, 2012.
Imports too rose by 6.12% to $45.5 billion in the month under review.
However, during the April-January period of 2012-13, the country's overseas shipments shrunk by 4.86% to $239.6 billion.
"I hope with exports growing marginally in January, it should help us narrow the trade gap at the close of the fiscal," commerce minister Anand Sharma said after launching the Nasscom national summit in Mumbai.
Commenting on the numbers, commerce secretary SR Rao told reporters: "Export performance in January has shown slightly positive results which is a matter of a bit of happiness and cumulative exports too have shown slight arrest in the fall."
Rao hoped that the incentive package, which came into force from January, would help the country's exports to "improve significantly" in the coming months.
"In the last couple of months, there is an arrest in the fall of exports. So we wish forward momentum continues and hopefully the additional incentives should result in better traction as we go forward," he added.
In October 2012, India's exports declined to 1.63% from 11% in September. And in December, the shipments declined by 1.9% from 4.17% in November 2012.
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