India’s export may miss target of $360 billion in FY13: Sharma

21 Feb 2013 Evaluate

As per the Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, exports in 2012-13 may miss the target and settle at $300 billion as against the $360 billion set for the current financial year, mainly on the back of slowdown in demand in traditional markets.

Reasoning the exports slowdown, Sharma said, ‘exports have not grown as we were hoping because of the contraction in global trade, the continuing turbulence in the Euro-zone area and the fall in demand in some of the traditional destinations’. However, Sharma expressed optimism that the numbers of February and March will remain strongly positive.

After eight months of contraction, India's exports rose at an annual rate of 0.82% at $25.58 billion in January. However, exports between April and January fell 4.86% to $239.68 billion as against $251.93 billion in the same month of the previous year. Meanwhile, cumulative value of imports for the period April-January, 2012-13 was at $406.85 billion as against $406.82 billion registering a positive growth of 0.01% over the same period last year. The trade deficit for April-January, 2012-13 was estimated at $167.16 billion much higher than the deficit of $154.89 billion during April-January, 2012.

On the widening trade deficit, Sharma said the country needs to look at ways to reduce its imports as a lot of foreign exchange is lost. He further added that gold imports are a matter of concern and a balanced approach is needed towards gold import. India, which imported about 750 tons of gold last year, with 60 percent of that through banks has already increased the import duty on gold, which now stands at 6%.

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