Non-industrial diamonds top export revenues in FY16

The Dollar Business Bureau

The exports of non-industrial diamonds have fetched a revenue of more than $16.5 billion till January this financial year. Non-industrial diamonds have become the leading exported commodity in FY 2015-16 while petroleum and crude oil is the top most imported commodity with imports worth $57.67 billion during this period.

Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has revealed this information on Tuesday during the launch of a dashboard on EXIM Analytics. This portal has been developed by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS). According to a ministry official, initially the portal would have trade data for five years.

The portal shows the declining trend of cumulative merchandise exports from the country. Indian merchandise exports touched a five-year low at $261 billion in FY 2015-16 from $310 billion in the last fiscal year.  At first the government had set a cumulative export target of $300 billion, but it revised it to $270 billion in April after the trade data was found negative the whole year.

According to the website, US was the top export destination of the country with $33.67 billion exports, followed by UAE and Hong Kong with $25.10 billion and $9.67 billion shipments respectively. The exports have seen growth for the last time in November 2014 at 7.2% year on year.

The portal provides analysis of data by time period, export destinations and ports of export. The Balance of Trade can also be analysed in various time frames for different countries and ports.

The analysis information is offered as a month’s aggregate at lowest granularity in various aspects that include country, commodity and port. Monthly data from April 2014 to January 2016 has been provided currently. Later on more dashboards will be added and older data provided on the website, the ministry said.