India’s January exports at over $22 bn grow 4% year-on-year

New Delhi, Feb 15 (IANS) Continuing with the revival in exports for the fifth month in a row, Indian merchandise shipments overseas at $22.12 billion in January 2017 registered an uptick of 4.32 per cent over the $21.20 billion exported in January 2015, official data showed on Wednesday.

Imports during the month in consideration at $31.96 billion also marked an increase of 10.70 per cent over the $28.87 billion worth of imports in January last year.

Consequently, the trade deficit in January was higher at $9.84 billion, as compared to the deficit of $7.67 billion during same month of 2016.

"The growth in exports is positive for USA (2.63 per cent), EU (5.47 per cent) and Japan (13.43 per cent), but China has exhibited negative growth of (-1.51 per cent) for November 2016 over the corresponding period of previous year as per latest WTO statistics," a Commerce Ministry release here said.

Cumulatively for the April-January period, exports rose marginally by 1.09 per cent in dollar terms at $220.9 billion, as against exports of $218.5 billion over the same period last year.

"Non-petroleum exports in January 2017 were valued at $19.42 billion against $19.11 billion in January 2016, an increase of 1.6 per cent," a statement here said

Cumulative imports for April-January were worth more than $307.3 billion, which was a 5.81 per cent fall from the over $326.3 billion worth imports recorded for the same period of the previous fiscal.

With global oil prices climbing back to nearly $55 a barrel, India's oil imports during January were valued at $8.14 billion, which was a massive 61.07 per cent jump over oil imports valued at $5.05 billion in the corresponding month of 2016.

Non-oil imports in January were static, increasing by 0.01 per cent to $23.82 billion, from $23.81 billion in the same month of last year.

The merchandise trade deficit cumulatively for April-January, however, declined by 19.82 per cent to $86.39 billion, as against $107.7 billion in the same period of 2015-16.

As per Reserve Bank of India data on Wednesday, services exports during December 2016 were valued at $13.80 billion, while imports stood at 8.29 billion, resulting in a positive trade balance of $5.5 billion.

Taking merchandise and services together, overall trade deficit for April-January is estimated at $38.07 billion, which is an impressive 29.7 per cent fall from the level of $54.19 billion during the same period last year.

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