Exports fall for 10th straight month, down 24% in Sept

Imports decline 25.4% to $32.32 billion; trade deficit at $10.48 billion

India’s merchandise exports fell for the 10th consecutive month in September this year. During the 2008-09 global financial meltdown, the decline was for nine months in a row.

Exports contracted 24.3 per cent, the steepest in 75 months,  to $21.84 billion in September, against $28.86 billion in September 2014, according to data released by the commerce department on Thursday.

Besides a global slowdown, the severe fall is attributed to a decline in global commodity prices. Exports had last recorded growth in November 2014, rising 7.27 per cent year-on-year.

Among high-value export items, refined petroleum products plummeted over 60 per cent in September year-on-year, engineering goods almost 23 per cent and electronic goods over 16 per cent. According to exporters body  Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), just six items out of 30 for which data is available showed growth in September, against seven in  August. For September, imports declined 25.4 per cent to $32.32 billion, compared to $43.34 billion in the year-ago period.

As such, the trade deficit for September stood at $10.48 billion, lower than the deficit of $14.25 billion in September last year. For August this year, the deficit stood at $12.48 billion.

For the first half of this financial year, exports stood at $132.09 billion, while imports were worth $200.9 billion, a trade deficit of $68 billion. Exports were down 17.6 per cent during the period year-on-year, while imports over 14 per cent.

India’s oil imports stood at $6.62 billion in September this year, 54.53 per cent lower than $14.57 billion a year ago. For the April-September period, oil imports stood at $48.12 billion, 41.58 per cent lower than the oil imports of $82.37 billion in the year-ago period. Non-oil imports in September were estimated at $25.69 billion, 10.68 per cent lower than $28.76 billion in September 2014. This is attributed to the slow growth in the domestic industrial sector.

For April-September, non-oil imports stood at $15.28 billion, a 0.72 per cent rise compared with $151.71 billion in the year-ago period.

After a huge rise in previous months, gold imports declined 45.62 per cent to $2 billion in September from $3.8 billion a year ago. Non-oil non-gold imports declined 5.2 per cent to $23.7 billion from $25 billion. This category of imports is taken as a broad proxy for  demand of imported industrial products in the economy. This meant the demand refused to perk up, posing a question mark over sustainability of industrial growth, which rose to a near three-year high of 6.4 per cent in August.

Meanwhile, the government is yet to restore three per cent interest subvention for exporters, which expired in March 31.

“Overall, we expect exports to remain weak in the coming months on account of a subdued global demand scenario,” said Richa Gupta, senior director, Deloitte In India.