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Goods exports from India continued on the high growth path in the first seven days of August 2021 growing 50.45 per cent (year-on-year) to $7.41 billion led by engineering goods, petroleum products and gems and jewellery, weekly trends shared by the Commerce and Industry Ministry show.
Exports, excluding POL (petrol, oil and lubricants), also increased in this period by 42.98 per cent to $6.53 billion over same period of 2020-21, indicating an increase across sectors.
Imports in the first week of the month (August 1-7) registered a steeper increase of 69.88 per cent to $10.45 billion compared to the same period last year pushed by high growth in petroleum products, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones and electronic goods. Trade deficit in the first week of August was at around $3 billion.
Engineering goods rise
In the first week of August 2021, exports of engineering goods increased 63.21 per cent to $834 million. Gems & jewellery exports posted a rise of 121.16 per cent to $418.29 million in the same week while petroleum products exports increased 145.31 per cent to $522.21 million, according to the data. However, there was a decline in exports of iron ore, oil meals and oil seeds.
Imports of non-petroleum products in the first week of August 2021, too, grew sharply at 51.07 per cent to $7.37 billion. While oil imports increased by 141.82 per cent to $1.80 billion, imports of electronic goods rose by 30.74 per cent to $308 million.
Top export markets
Gold imports during the period declined 12.48 per cent to $100 million while fertiliser importers dropped 74.12 per cent to $155.69 million and project goods imports fell 57.53 per cent to $16.68 million. The US, UAE and Saudi Arab were the top export markets for India in terms of growth in August first week.
Imports from UAE, China and Nigeria posted the highest increase during the week.
Both exports and imports in the August 1-7 2021 period registered an increase of 27.51 per cent and 30.72 per cent, respectively, over performance in the same period in 2019 when production and the global economy had not been hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Commerce & Industry Ministry will revise the numbers based on more data collected and publish quick estimates of the trade numbers for August 2021 around the middle of next month.
Exports from the country had declined by 7.26 per cent (year-on-year) to $ 290.63 billion in 2020-21 largely due to the pandemic. However, with a pickup in global demand, exports this fiscal are on a rebound posting a 73.51 per cent increase in the April-July 2021 period to $130.53 billion.
The Commerce Ministry has set an ambitious export target of $400 billion for the current fiscal.
India’s rice exports likely to top last year’s performance
Published on August 10, 2021
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