Exports growth may be slow, but steady in coming months: Nirmala Sitharaman

New Delhi: The fall in exports has been arrested and its growth is expected to be slow but steady in the coming months, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Monday. “At the moment, the fall is arrested (and it) is very clear. The growth is happening. We will only be looking at the steady growth. It may be slow but steady” she told reporters here. [caption id=“attachment_2059939” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. AFP[/caption] She said this in a reply to a question on outlook for exports in the coming months. Contracting for the second month in a row, India’s exports dipped 0.3 percent to $21.51 billion owing to decline in shipments of products like petroleum and leather. Exports were in negative zone between December 2014 and May 2016 due to weak global demand and slide in oil prices. Shipments witnessed growth only in June this year thereafter again entered into negative zone in July. Meanwhile the minister also launched a dashboard on foreign trade data. “This has everything to do with exports and imports. What is the global position and which country is buying from India, every data in exports and imports from ports to geographical areas are there,” she said. This is part of the initiative of the ministry to provide easy access to the public with regard to Indias export, import and balance of trade data in an analytical format, over time and space. She said technology will be used for transparent decision making and reaching out to people using real time data. The detailed data would help user to inspect the trade that happens between India and a particular country, zoom into the activities of a particular port and reflect trade pattern over any months of the user’s choice. Through this, countries can be sorted by import value and the corresponding value of export trade. The commerce ministry in a statement said that digitisation of the government records and data analytics is crucial for fast and effective evidence based planning and policy evaluation. The dashboard would provide an enabling environment to importers and exporters to identify and access global trade opportunities based on reliable and updated information, directly accessible to the public through government sources.