The Hindu Business Line : Import of sensitive items up 11.1% in Apr-Dec ‘07

New Delhi, Feb. 12 In line with the high import growth rate on the back of an appreciating rupee vis-À-vis the US dollar, the country’s import of sensitive items being monitored by the Department of Commerce in view of their impact on domestic prices, also registered an increase of 11.1 per cent during the first three quarters of the current fiscal, as compared with the corresponding quarters of the last fiscal.

An official release issued here said that the total import of over 350 such sensitive goods for the period April-December 2007 has been Rs 20,589 crore as compared with Rs 18,532 crore during the corresponding period of last fiscal.

The gross import of all commodity during the same period of the current fiscal was Rs 6,82,088 crore as compared with Rs 6,11,522 crore during the same period of the previous fiscal.

Import of sensitive items constitutes 3 per cent of the gross imports during the last fiscal as well as the current fiscal period under review.

Imports of consumption items such as foodgrains, cotton and silk, alcoholic beverages, tea and coffee and industrial products such as automobile, products of small scale industry and rubber have shown marked rise during the period under review.

While import of foodgrains rose from Rs 1,228.26 crore to Rs 1,475.52 crore in the corresponding period of the current fiscal, alcoholic beverages import rose from Rs 146.83 crore to Rs 182 crore.

automobile imports

In the case of automobile imports there was a surge of 90.3 per cent from a level of Rs 446 crore during April-December 2006 to Rs 848.63 crore in April-December 2007, while that of rubber imports went up from Rs 415.28 crore to Rs 629.10 crore, logging a growth of 52 per cent.

Edible oil

In the edible oil segment, the import has increased from Rs 7,929 crore in the first three quarters of 2006-07 to Rs 8,433 crore in the corresponding quarters of the current fiscal with the import of both crude oil as well as refined oil having gone up by 5.6 per cent and 13.1 per cent respectively. The increase in edible oil import is mainly due to marked growth in the import of crude palm oil and its fractions, which has gone up by 11 per cent.

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