Finance News

Re depreciation helps exports surge by 31%

After registering a slump in the growth, Indian exports are once again beaming with the rupee sliding over the last one month.

Exports have seen a growth of 31% in dollar terms and 26% in rupee terms in the month of April with the depreciation of rupee going up to 7% from April 1 to May 15 as compared to the appreciation of nearly 12% against the dollar since last year.

R S Gujral, director general of foreign trade told FE that this rise of 31% (yet to be formally announced) has been registered across the board with engineering goods, textiles, plastic and rubber showing signs of improvement.

"Our exports exceeded $155 billion in 2007-08 with an average cumulative annual growth rate of 23% year on year," he said.

"This year we are targeting exports worth $200 billion at a growth rate of nearly 30% and despite the curbs and ban on various commodities we are confident of achieving the targets," he added while interacting with media on the sidelines of an event at PHDCCI, Chandigarh.

Gujral further shared that over the last four years exports have been on the rise and India's share in the global merchandise trade has increased from 0.83% to 1.5%.

He said, "We are aiming to acquire 5% of the global trade in goods and services by 2020. For that we have proposed to set up a Joint Task Force which will have representatives from the state governments, trade associations and various ministries of government of India."

The Joint Task Force will be deliberated to chalk out an action plan for increasing our share to 5% in the global trade. Infrastructure bottlenecks will also be taken care of in relation to development of roads, ports, ships and other logistics to provide an enabling environment for growth of exports," he added.

Giving no signs about lifting of ban on non-basmati exports, Gujral pointed out to the non-availability of rice in the international market.

"We have to strike a balance between the exports and food & security needs of the common people of our country. About 10 lakh tonne of rice had been supplied under transitional arrangements so we had to take steps to curb the same," Gujral said.

Six months ago the international price of non-basmati rice was US $ 350 per tonne and now the minimum export price is reigning over US $ 1000 per tonne. But there is no availability of rice for exports.

"On the wheat front, there has been a bumper crop this season and once the cabinet committee will reassess the prices then only the government will take a decision whether to export wheat this year or not," Gujral said.