News

     NEW DELHI, NOV 12:The country’s merchandise  exports shrank to $ 12.5 billion- down by 11.4 per cent, for the thirteenth month in a row in October  due to sagging overseas demand on the back of the economic slowdown in the developed world, The Commerce Secretary, Mr Rahul Khullar, said the country’s exporta during October 2008 were $ 14.1 billion. Exports during the first seven months of the current fiscal (Apr-Oct) fetched $90.4 billion down by a massive 27 per cent. against $123 billion in the corresponding months of last fiscal. He said engineering goods, minerals, mica coal tobacco and tea were the laggards which caused the export decline to persist to persist  though there were some improvements in the export of druge, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals, electronic goods and iron ore as compared to the previous year. Mr Khullar was optimistic that if the current trend  continues “export growth is likely to transit to a positive phase by January 2010″. Stating that there was no need to withdraw the stimulus to the sector as of now, Mr Khullar said “near sign of  nascent recovery cannot be the basis for withrawing the stimulus”. He however, said there is no need for further sops to the export sector.