Exports may grow merely 3% in FY10: plan panel

Faced with declining world trade, India's exports growth could be as low as 3 per cent in 2009-10, the Planning Commission said in its report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"If we assume that India's exports depend on the growth rate of advanced economies rather than on the growth rate of the world economy, our export growth rate in 2009 can be only 3 per cent," the report on the prospects of the Indian economy in 2009-10, by Planning Commission Member Kirit Parikh, said.

The report, which was submitted to the Prime Minister last week, said that in the best-case scenario exports would register a growth rate of 6 per cent next fiscal.

This, however, would be much lower than the average export growth rate of 21 per cent during 2006-07 and 2007-08.

As regards 2008-09, the Commerce Ministry data said exports grew by 7.3 per cent to $156.5 billion during April-February period.

However, as the negative trend that started in October is likely to continue in March as well, the annualised export expansion may not exceed 3-4 per cent.

The report said that one per cent decline in global output results in 4.4 per cent fall in exports.

According to the assessment, with global output falling by 0.9 per cent in 2009, India's exports could further dip by four percentage points during the year.