Exports drop by 13.8% in September

India's exports remained downhill for 12 months in a row, declining by 13.8 per cent to $13.6 billion in September, but the damage to exports inflicted by recession in big markets seems to be bottoming out.

Due to a sharp drop in crude oil prices to $76 per barrel from a peak of $147 per barrel last year, the country's imports fell by a drastic 31.3 per cent in September this year to $21.3 billion.

As a result, the country's trade gap narrowed to $7.7 billion against $15.3 billion in the same month in 2008, according to official data released today.

For the April-August period of the current fiscal, the overseas shipments dropped by 28.5 per cent to $77.9 billion from $108.9 billion in the same period last year.

However, the fall in September shrank by about 6 per cent as compared with 19.4 per cent in August.

The exports for 2008-09 now stands revised to $185 billion.

Exports started going down from October last year, a month after the global economic situation worsened following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.