India’s October exports at $23.5 bn grow nearly 10%

New Delhi, Nov 15 (IANS) Signalling a clear reversal of the earlier continuous decline in Indian exports, official data on Tuesday showed these grew for the second month in a row at $23.51 billion in October on the back of a good showing by the jewellery and engineering sectors.

Exports thus registered a healthy 9.59 per cent growth over that recorded in the same month last year at $21.46 billion.

However, cumulatively for the April-October period, exports were down 0.17 per cent in dollar terms at $154.9 billion, as against exports of $155.2 billion over the same period last year, as per data released by the Commerce Ministry.

The government said there was growth in exports for US (0.20 per cent), EU (5.78 per cent), Japan (10.03 per cent) but China exhibited negative growth (-3.01 per cent) for August 2016 over the corresponding period of the previous year, as per latest WTO statistics.

"Non-petroleum exports in October 2016 are valued at $20.80 billion against $18.92 billion in October 2015, an increase of 9.9 per cent," a statement here said.

Imports during the month in question at $33.67 billion, were 8.11 per cent higher than the imports of $31.15 billion in October 2015.

Consequently, the trade deficit in October this year at $10.16 billion witnessed an 4.8 per cent rise, compared to the same month last year at $9.69 billion.

Cumulative imports for April-October were worth more than $208 billion, which was a 10.85 per cent fall from over $233 billion worth imports recorded for the same period a year ago.

With global oil prices climbing back to near-$50 a barrel levels, India's oil imports during October 2016 were valued at $7.14 billion, which was 3.98 per cent higher than oil imports valued at $6.87 billion in the corresponding period last year.

Non-oil imports in October rose by 9.28 per cent to $26.53 billion, from $24.28 billion in the same month of last year

The trade deficit cumulatively for April-October also declined to $53.16 billion against $78.24 billion in the same period of 2015-16.