India’s Export Volume Reaches New High in December

Posted by Reading Time: < 1 minute

Jan. 10 – India may be able to reduce its trade deficit this year following an optimistic performance of the country’s exports in December.

India’s exports reported an annual increase of 36.4 percent last month, reaching a new 33-month high. The country exported US$22.5 billion worth of goods in December, while the monthly imports decreased by 11.1 percent to US$25.1 billion. The trade deficit reached the lowest in three years to US$2.6 billion.

The excellent performance of exports may help India relieve its worries over a large current account deficit that may achieve US$130 billion to US$135 billion, according to Rahul Khullar, secretary of the Ministry of Commerce. He predicts the overall trade gap may not exceed US$120 billion this year.

Khullar contributes the export hike to the good performance of traditional markets and the increasing diversification of India’s export markets. Not only did the U.S. and EU markets perform well, there were also increasing orders from Latin American countries that helped produce a significant 112 percent growth in engineering exports.

The exported merchandise with the most significant growth rates includes pharmaceuticals (810 percent), engineering (112 percent), electronics (88 percent), yarns (65 percent) and man-made fibers (30 percent).