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ShareAugust 2009 saw yet another lacklustre performance in exports; at $14,289 million, export earnings were down by 19.4% over the same month of the year ago.
Though the extent of the decline was less than the 28.4% fall recorded during the preceding month, still, the underlying trend -- the 11th consecutive month of setback -- suggests that the going has been tough for exporters; what is worse, the outlook for the near-term is none -- too-bright as the turnaround in the economies of our major trading partners may be weak, as per the latest indications.
Import growth too languished, with the August figure, at $22,661 million, lower by a staggering 32.4% on a year-on-year basis.If there is evidence of green shoots of recovery in the domestic economy, at least the import data do not bear this out.
Though, in part, the downward movement in imports is a sequel to a much lighter oil import bill, the fact that, non-oil imports are also on the retreat casts doubt on the pace, durability and extent of the economic rebound, of which so much is talked about now.
Perhaps, the only welcome aspect is that, the trade gap has narrowed markedly in August 2009 compared with the year ago -- to $8.37 billion from $15.78 billion.To put it differently, the import-purchasing power of exports has improved now to 63.1% from 52.9%.
At the disaggregated level, oil imports during August were lower by 45.5% at $6.28 billion; in the case of non-oil imports, at $16.38 billion, there was a drop of 25.5% in relation to the same month of 2008.
With a continuous downward movement in both exports and imports thus far in 2009-10, the cumulative performance till August is a virtual repeat of the monthly trend.
Export earnings were down by 31% to $64.13 billion and imports by 33.4% to $102.30 billion.
The trade deficit for the April-August 2009 period shrank to $38.17 billion from the year ago level of $60.73 billion.The upshot of this narrowing of the trade gap was that, exports financed 62.7% of the imports during the latest five-month period as against 60.5% in the preceding year.
During 2008-09, India's exports were of the order of $168.70 billion. With the actual for the April-August 2009-10 period a mere $64.13 billion, even to realise the last year's figure now seems very remote.
