The Hindu Business Line : Sensitive items imports up 38% in April-Nov

IN line with the higher import growth distinctly noticeable during the current fiscal, the import of 300 sensitive items, monitored by the Commerce Ministry in view of their likely adverse fallout on domestic price situation of such commodities, displayed a higher growth during the first eight months of the current fiscal.

According to official data released on 300 sensitive items of imports, there has been a 38 per cent increase in their imports during April to November 2003 at Rs 12,022 crore, against Rs 8,707 crore during the corresponding period of 2002.

The Government claims that against the gross import of all commodities during the same period amounting to Rs 2,20,582 crore, which was Rs 1,90,327 crore during the same period last year, import of 300 sensitive items at Rs 12,022 crore was only 4.6 per cent of the total imports.

Stating that the major item that has led to the growth was crude palm oil and its fractions, the Government said that import of spices and tea and coffee have also shown a decline at broad group level during the period.

Import of edible oil, cotton and silk, fruits and vegetables, automobiles, rubber, milk and milk products and small-scale industrial items and other products have shown increase during the period under review.

On the edible oil front, the import has increased from Rs 5,315 crore last year to Rs 7,934 crore for the corresponding period this year. But a significant aspect of edible oil import is that though import of crude oil has gone up by 35 per cent, that of refined palm oil and palmolein have increased by 139 per cent with a percentage share of crude to the total edible oil remains as high as 79 per cent, reflecting a better utilisation of the domestic processing capacity.

Imports of soya bean crude oil, kernel/babasu crude oil and sunflower crude oil have also gone up marginally.

Import of sensitive items from Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, the US, Egypt, Thailand, Mali, Greece, Bisu, Brazil, South Korea, China and Afghanistan have gone up while those from Sri Lanka, Switzerland and Australia have shown decrease.

A sensitive item like rubber saw import going up during the period under review from Rs 47.65 crore in 2002 to Rs 149.88 crore now, showing a hefty growth of 215 per cent.