Export growth plummets by 2.61 pc

NEW DEKHI, Mar 29: Indian exports have recorded a negative growth of 2.61 per cent, from 24,937.03 million to 21,286.87 million durin...

NEW DEKHI, Mar 29: Indian exports have recorded a negative growth of 2.61 per cent, from 24,937.03 million to 21,286.87 million during the first nine months of the current fiscal as compared to the same period of previous year, reveals a country-wise analysis of exports compiled by the Commerce Ministry.

There was a marked deceleration in India8217;s exports to both east and west Europe, Asia and Oceania countries and to the European Free Trade Association EFTA countries. The analysis shows that India8217;s exports, however, posted a positive growth to Africa during the above period.As a result, the India8217;s exports to East Europe declined from 901.01 million in April-December 1997 to 751.65 million in April-Decmber 1998.

This shows a negative growth of 16.58 per cent. Among the Commonwealth of Independent States CIS, Indian exports to the Russia declined by 25.06 per cent, from 667.09 million to 499.93 million. The position is the same in respect of the rest of CIS countries where exportsrecorded a negative growth of 8.98 per cent. India8217;s exports to West Europe as a whole fell by 2.70 per cent, from 6,871.56 million to 6,686.25 million.

EFTA countries imports from India were down from 514.93 million to 489.97 million, registering a decline of 4.85 per cent. The intake of Indian goods by the rest of West Europe also came down by 26.05 per cent, from 208.69 million to 154.33 million.

Exports to Asia and Oceania dropped from 9,767.41 million to 8,586.78 million, showing a decline of 12.09 per cent. Among the Asia and Oceania countries, exports to Escap countries fell by 20.85 per cent. However, only exports to Bangladesh achieved a positive growth of 33.43 per cent.

Exports to other Escap nations dropped from 1403.07 million to 1,283.49 million in the case of Hong Kong, from 1,386.55 million to 1,187.40 million in the case of Japan, from 470.83 million to 299.78 million in the case of China, from 583.24 million to 358.67 million in the case of Singapore,from 354.41 million to 327.61 million in the case of Sri Lanka and from 114.82 million to 91.21 in the case of Nepal.

India8217;s imports during April-December 1998 posted a growth of 7.03 per cent. In value terms, the imports increased from 29,507.94 million to 31,582.86 million. With exports decelerating, the trade deficit shot up to 7.29 billion.

DEPB scheme to be revised in new Exim policy

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NEW DELHI, Mar 29 : Revised rates for export items covered by the duty entitlement passbook DEPB scheme and lowering of the Rs 20 crore threshold limit to Rs 1 crore under zero duty export promotion capital goods scheme EPCG for the chemicals sector and to a few more engineering items are among the changes likely to be incorporated in the new export-import policy to be notified by commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde on Wednesday.

Following three rounds of discussions between senior officials in the commerce ministry and the finance ministry on the one hand and between finance ministerYashwant Sinha and commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde on the other in the past few days, the indications are that all the existing export promotion schemes will be retained with procedural simplification.

The schemes include DEPB scheme, EPCG scheme, duty exemption scheme, hundred per cent export-oriented units scheme and export/trading/star trading/super star trading house scheme. There is however a question mark over the continuation of the 10 per cent duty EPCG scheme. Earlier, it had appeared that the scheme would be scrapped going by the stand taken by the finance and commerce ministries that it had lost the shine due to depressed demand at home. The possibility of the commerce ministry coming out with innovations to lift the sagging morale of the exporting community is rated high.