New Delhi, November 22: During the first seven months of the year both exports and imports registered negative growth rates according to credit rating agency Care Ratings. However, the report said, with imports declining at a faster rate the trade deficit has improved from $ 116.4 bn last year to $ 94.6 bn during April-Oct FY20. In the first seven months of FY20 import declined by 8.5 per cent and export declined by 2.2 per cent, it said.
The report highlighted that this is not the first time that growth in the trade indicators have moved to the negative zone. This was also in 2016-17 when imports had declined by 10.1 per cent.
Advertisement
According to this report, the share of petro products in H1 of FY20 stood at 13.4 per cent, 0.7 per cent higher than 12.7 per cent in H1 of FY16. However, under non-petro products, textiles, readymade garments and leather products share in total export has also fallen. The share of textile in total exports fallen to 5.2 per cent in H1 of FY 20 from 6.4 per cent in H1 of FY16. Readymade garments also witnessed a marginal decline from 6.4 per cent in H1 of FY19 to 4.9 per cent in H1 of FY20.
On the contrary agricultural and allied products share in total export has fallen from 11.7 per cent in H1 of FY16 to 10.7 per cent in H1 of FY20. Under non oil export, other category of products that witnessed a rise in their share in total export is chemical and related products, that witnessed an increase from 12.3 per cent in H1 of FY16 to 14.5 per cent in H1 of FY20. The engineering goods share in total export also rose marginally from 22.6 per cent in H1 of FY16 to 23.7 per cent in H1 of FY20.
Advertisement
According to the report, in top 10 export destinations for India, the USA is at the top followed by UAE, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Netherlands. On the other hand, China tops the list of top 10 sources of imports in H1 of FY20, followed by the USA, UK, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Throwing light on the Import, the report mentioned the share of oil has gone up in total imports from 23.8% in H1 of FY16 to 26.3% H1 of FY20. Within the other categories there has been an increase in the share of electronic items from 10.6 per cent in H1 of FY16 to 12.7 in H1 of FY20, which can be a result of the telecom and higher demand for related equipment at the retail end.
