Fall in shipments of petroleum and engineering products has led to decline in exports for 17th month in a row in April by 6.74 per cent to $20.5 billion.
Imports too dipped by 23.1 per cent to $25.41 billion in the month under review as against $33 billion in April 2015.
Trade deficit in April more than halved to $4.84 billion as compared to $11 billion in the same month last year. The trade gap was a five-year low figure. It was at $2.63 billion in December 2010.
The Commerce Ministry said that the trend of falling exports is in tandem with other major world economies.
“The growth in exports have fallen for USA (3.87 per cent), EU (0.04 per cent), China (25.34 per cent) and Japan (1.10 per cent) for February over the corresponding period of previous year as per WTO statistics,” it said.
Exporters body FIEO said downfall in exports has been arrested to some extent both in March and April and hoped that shipments move into positive territory from June onwards.
On the other hand, Engineering Export Promotion COuncil said, “There has been an alarming deterioration in exports of highly-job oriented engineering exports”.
Exports have been falling since December 2014 due to weak global demand and slide in oil prices.
Oil imports in April dipped by 24.01 per cent to $5.6 billion.