India’s share in global exports and ranking amongst top exporters remained unchanged in 2013. The country’s growing current account deficit, however, was flagged as an area of concern by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in its trade forecast report released on Monday.
The forecast upgraded the expected world trade growth for 2014 to 4.7 per cent from 4.5 per cent estimated earlier. The prospect for 2015 is better with a 5.3 per cent expected growth in merchandise trade, it said.
India exported goods worth $312 billion in 2013 posting a 5 per cent rise over the previous year. Its share in world exports was 1.7 per cent — the same as the previous year.
The country was ranked 13 amongst top exporting countries as opposed to last year’s ranking of 19, but the improvement was only on paper. The change was on account of the European Union being considered as a single member as opposed to the earlier practice of EU member-countries being ranked separately.
India’s imports contracted 5 per cent in 2013 to $466 billion, which the WTO attributed to the country’s economic slowdown.
The forecast expressed concerns over India’s large current account deficit and its vulnerability to financial market volatility.
“The rise in financial market volatility was most keenly felt in emerging markets with large current account deficits. This is especially true of India, where output growth see-sawed from 2.6 per cent in the second quarter to 7.2 per cent in the third, then back to 3.9 per cent in the fourth,” it said.