New Delhi, July 15 (IANS) After 18 successive months of decline, India's merchandise exports in June registered a slight rise of 1.27 per cent at $22.57 billion buoyed by more commodity exports, over the $22.29 billion worth exported in the like month of 2015, official data showed here on Friday.
Instead, the country's imports in June recorded a fall of 7.33 per cent at $30.69 billion, compared to imports of $33.12 billion in the same month last year.
Consequently, the trade deficit in June also declined to $8.11 billion as compared to $10.41 billion in the previous month.
"Non-petroleum exports in June 2016 were valued at $19.98 billion against $19.40 billion in June 2015, an increase of 3.06 per cent," a commerce ministry statement here said.
Cumulatively, for the April-June, exports were down 2.07 per cent in dollar terms at $65.31 billion, against $66.69 billion over the same period last year.
Cumulative imports for April-June were worth more than $84.55 billion, which was a 14.53 per cent fall from $98.92 billion worth recorded for the same period a year ago.
Lower global crude prices meant oil imports during the month under review declined by 16.42 per cent to $7.25 billion from $8.68 billion in the corresponding month of last year.
For April-June, crude oil imports plummeted by 23.57 per cent at $18.85 billion from $24.66 billion in the corresponding period last year.
Reserve Bank data on Friday showed India's services exports in May grew 4.28 per cent at $13.46 billion over the same month last year, compared to a marginal growth of 0.1 per cent in April at $13.01 billion.
Services imports in May recorded steady growth at $7.92 billion, as compared to $7.18 billion in April.
