India’s exports drop by 12.7% for 3rd consecutive month in April

New Delhi, May 16 (KNN) In April 2023 the exports from India declined by 12.7 per cent to USD 34.66 billion, while the trade deficit reduced to a 20-month low of USD 15.24 billion.

According to the government data released on Monday, demand scenario is “not looking very good” as far as Europe is concerned, and the US also has seen a decline in demand.

DGFT (Director General of Foreign Trade) Santosh Kumar Sarangi told reporters that the demand scenario does not look very optimistic for the next 2-3 months.

“There is a possibility that opening up of Chinese economy combined with some boost in demand in the Europe and the US economy from August-September onwards might give a boost to global exports,” he said.

In view of imports it witnessed a decline of about 14 per cent for the fifth month in a row, to USD 49.9 billion, against USD 58.06 billion recorded in the same month last year.

In April 2022, the trade deficit stood at USD 18.36 billion. The lowest level prior to that was in April 2021, when the deficit stood at USD 15.10 billion.

“The decline in imports is due to the cooling down of commodity prices and reduced demand for discretionary products, such as gems and jewellery,” said Sarangi.

He suggested to diversify into products which have higher export demand, such as electronic goods, oil meals, oil seeds, and agricultural goods.

In April, export sectors which recorded negative growth, included petroleum products, gems and jewellery, engineering goods, chemicals and ready-made garments of all textiles.

But, electronic goods, pharma, rice and oil meals registered positive growth. The shipments of electronic goods rose by 26.49 per cent to USD 2.11 billion in the month under review.  (KNN Bureau)