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The country’s exports continued to rise in August posting a 45.17 per cent growth year-on-year (Y-o-Y) at $33.14 billion with impressive performance across sectors such as engineering goods, petroleum products, gems & jewellery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and textiles, according to the Commerce & Industry Ministry’s provisional data.
Exports in April-August 2021 rose 66.92 per cent to $163.67 billion compared to exports in the comparable period last year, as per the numbers released on Thursday. However, exports in August 2021 were about 5.77 per cent lower than the exports in July 2021, valued at $35.17 billion.
“We are confident that we can reach the export target of $400 billion set for this fiscal,” Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam said at a press briefing. This will be a significant improvement over not only last year’s export performance of $292 billion but also the all time high exports of 2018-19 valued at $330 billion.
Imports surge
Imports in August 2021 increased 51.47 per cent to $47.01 billion. In the April-August 202l period, imports rose 81.75 per cent to $219.54 billion. Trade deficit in August 2021 was at $13.87 billion, compared to $8.2 billion in the same period last year.
Imports of petroleum, gold, vegetable oil, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, machinery, iron and steel and coke posted sharp increases in August 2021 compared to August 2020.
“Imports clocking $47.01 billion with a growth of 51 per cent during the month should be analysed,” said Federation of Indian Export Organisations President, A Sakthivel. The Commerce Ministry has already put in place an import monitoring system to track the items where imports are surging so that it could jointly discuss ways to curb such surges with line Ministries and Departments.
It was encouraging that export growth had taken place across sectors that were labour-intensive such as garments, engineering goods, handloom products and gems and jewellery as it would further help in job creation in the country, Sakthivel said.
Value of non-petroleum exports in August 2021 stood at $28.58 billion, registering a growth of 36.57 per cent over August 2020. Non-petroleum imports were valued at $35.37 billion in August 2021 with a growth of 43.88 per cent over non-petroleum imports in August 2020.
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