NEW DELHI: India’s exports grew by 80 per cent to $7.04 billion during the first week of May, as per the preliminary data released by the Commerce Ministry.

Meanwhile, exports between May 1 and May 7 in 2020 stood at $3.91 billion, according to the data. Exports had stood at $6.48 billion during the same week in May 2019.

Imports have also registered impressive growth. They rose by 80.7 per cent to $8.86 billion during May 1-7, 2021 as against $4.91 billion in the same period last year.

While in the same week in May 2019, imports were at $10.39 billion.

In April, India’s exports had jumped nearly three-fold. Exports rose to $30.21 billion in April 2021 compared to $10.17 billion in April 2020.

Gems and jewellery, jute, carpet, handicrafts, leather, electronic goods, oil meals, cashew, engineering, petroleum products, marine products, and chemicals are the major commodities that are recording healthy growth.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President S K Saraf stated that the exports growth is encouraging and order books of exporters are healthy.

“I will urge the government to look into the issues of MEIS (merchandise export from India scheme). RoDTEP (remission of duties and taxes on export products) rates should also be announced immediately to further push the shipments as profitability of exporters are getting impacted,” he said.