Exports continue to drop, 29% in June

NEW DELHI: India’s exports saw a 29% drop in June 2009, Union minister for commerce & industry Anand Sharma told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

The country’s exports are experiencing a declining trend for the last nine months. The growth in exports had registered a 29.2% drop at $11 billion in May 2009. The decline was 34% in April 2009.

As per a sample study conducted by the commerce department, 648 exporting units across the country posted a loss of Rs 8,982 crore between August 2008 and April 2009.

Exporting units in 17 sectors saw 134,593 people losing jobs during the period, another survey conducted by the department on retrenchment said. “This does not reflect the total job losses, which would be higher,” minister of state of commerce & industry Jyotiraditya M Scindia informed the House.

Mr Sharma said the pace of export fall had begun to recede. He expressed optimism that the measures announced in the budget would help the crisis-ridden export sector.

In the budget, the finance minister decided to continue with the interest rate subvention (discount) scheme and the export credit guarantee scheme for exports beyond September 2009 till March 2010.

The commerce and industry minister also said it is against creating barriers against imports into the country as India itself has been opposing the protectionist policies that block the flow of global trade.

“Our position has been clear that we are against any protectionist barriers coming up that many countries have shown a tendency to go in for and which is impacting the flow of global commerce, including India’s exports to those countries,” Mr Sharma said in the Rajya Sabha.

In 2008-09, India’s exports were just 3.4% higher at $168.7 billion compared with $163 billion in 2007-08. While exports grew 34% in the first six months of 2008-09, the downturn hit exports in the second half of the fiscal, bringing down the growth rate to less than 4%.