Exports dip for 11th month

India’s exports continued to fall for the eleventh month in a row in August, when it declined 19.4% to $14.28 billion in August. However, the good news is that the decline has narrowed down from around 30%, witnessed earlier. Thanks to a sharp drop in crude oil prices to $70 per barrel from a peak of $147 per barrel last year, country’s imports fell 32.4% in August 2009 to $22.66 billion. As a result, the trade deficit of the country narrowed to $8.37 billion as against $15.78 billion in the same period last year. According to the government data for the April-August period of the current fiscal, the overseas shipments dropped 31% to $64.12 billion from $92.95 billion in the same period last year. Because of the financial crisis in the global market, exporters began experiencing the heat from October last year.As the exports fell sharply in October 2008, which would be used as a base period to compare the performance of October this year, it is expected that exports performance in the percentage term starts looking better from then. However, in the absolute term, the exports figures will return to normal level after sometime. The country’s oil import bill declined by 45.5% to $6.28 billion from $11.52 in August 2008.