Choppy US recovery, global slowdown, oil prices led to fall in exports: Govt

Global slowdown, uncertain recovery in the US economy and sharp fall in crude oil prices are the major reasons for decline in Indian exports, the government said today.

"The major reasons for the fall in exports are external factors like the global slowdown, which has impacted both the global trade and India's trade adversely," Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

"The significant slowdown includes the Chinese economy; moderate but uncertain recovery in the US economy, which is one of our large export markets; and the sharp fall in crude and petroleum prices," she said.

She also said there has been a fall in exports from states such as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

In a separate reply, Sitharaman said the government has introduced various measures to increase the country's total exports.

"The government is providing incentives for the export of goods and services from the country to all export units according to eligibility, irrespective of whether they are central or state owned public sector units of private units," she said.

The US was the top destination for Indian exports during the April-December period of the 2015-16 financial year. The exports to the US stood at $30.23 billion.

That was followed by UAE ($22.56 billion), Hong Kong ($8.77 billion), China ($6.95 billion), UK ($6.64 billion), Singapore ($6 billion), Germany ($5.18 billion), Saudi Arabia ($5.12 billion), Bangladesh ($4.22 billion) and Vietnam ($4.08 billion) during the nine months period of the current financial year.

In a separate reply, Sitharaman said government has infused additional corpus of Rs 375 crore into the National Export Insurance Account, raising the corpus to more than Rs 2,100 crore and strengthen the capacity to augment project exports from the country.

"The equity capital of Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) Ltd has also been raised by Rs 50 crore to Rs 1,300 crore enabling higher underwriting capacity to support exporters to expand their business and support banks for adequate lending to exporters," she added.