NEW DELHI, OCT 1: India's exports staged a remarkable recovery by notching up a 10.16% growth in August after slipping to a meagre 2.11% in July. This is for the third time that exports recorded a double digit growth in the first five months of the current fiscal. The other two instances were 11.68% growth registered in May and 11.14% posted in June.Imports too showed a sharp increase of 19.3% in August over the same month last year. Conversely, there was a negative growth of 5.84% in July, going by the provisional trade data released by the commerce ministry on Friday.Imports during April-August were estimated at $18,075.27 million against $17,390.55 million in the corresponding period last year, an increase of 3.94%.During this period, oil imports were sharply up 56.45% to $3,599.53 million from $2,300.81 million. The increase was in line with the rising prices in the global market. Non-oil imports, on the other hand, declined 4.07 per cent to $14,475.74 million from $15,089.74 million.The tradedeficit in April-August 1999 stood at $3,962.39 million, slightly higher than the $3,900.48 million registered in the same period last year. The commerce ministry has fixed an export growth target of 11% for the 1999-2000 fiscal over the previous year based on a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.During the Eighth Plan, the exports registered a growth of over 18-21 per cent in dollar terms only during 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1995-96. In the remaining two years, the growth was a measly 3.8% in 1992-93 and 4.01 per cent in 1996-97.The export growth recorded in the first year of the Ninth Plan (1997-98) was by far the lowest at 2.64%.
