Exports may achieve double-digit growth

NEW DELHI, MAR 14: India, for the first time in the current fiscal, is likely to achieve a double digit export growth rate in February, c...

NEW DELHI, MAR 14: India, for the first time in the current fiscal, is likely to achieve a double digit export growth rate in February, commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde said today.

"Our efforts to give a push to this sector have at last borne fruit," Hegde told PTI.Though exports growth had registered negative growth of 5.08 per cent in the first half of the current fiscal, it picked up since November.In January, exports registered the highest growth of 8.51% for the current fiscal.

"Our export growth in January was the highest in the entire Asian region. Even China registered a negative two per cent growth in exports in January," he said. Hegde conceded the government had fixed an ambitious export growth rate target of 15 per cent for the current fiscal but did not say whether the present trend would encourage commerce ministry to fix a similar target for 1999-2000.

Cumulatively, exports during April-January 1998-99 are estimated at $27.58 billion which is 1.98 per cent lower than the level of $27.7billion posted in the corresponding period the previous year.

In February last year, exports recorded $2.87 bn in value terms, a growth rate of 5.12% compared to $2.73bn in February 1997. Hegde said a committee had been formed under N K Singh to look into the issue of cutting down transaction costs and its report was expected before April 1. The Cabinet committee on international trade, whose meeting was put off in view of Hegde’s visit to Bangladesh, would also look into the issue.