Trade deficit increase to 22.8 billion dollars: Govt

New Delhi, Feb 22 (UNI) The government today said the country's trade deficit increased from 22.8 billion dollars during April- January 2004-05 to 33.8 billion dollars in April-January 2005-06 mainly due to the 47 per cent increase in oil imports.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jairam Ramesh said one of the important reasons for widening trade deficit during the current financial year has been the increase in oil-imports by 47 per cent.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, he said there are no measures to restrict imports or artificially balance trade that may lead to dampening of the growth of the economy or resurgence of inflationary pressures.

However export promotion is a contant endeavour of the government and a number of measures have been taken recently to further boost the exports.

These include, bringing into force the SEC ACT 2005 to trigger a larger flow of investment in infrastructure and productive capacity; setting up Free Trade Warehousing Zones (FTWZs); giving a major thurst to procedural simplification to reduce transaction cost of exporters and signing regional trade agreements to leverage exports in line with India's comparative advantage.

Meanwhile, imports from China continue to flood India. The provisional estimates in 2004-05 said that it went up to 6746.66 million dollars, a 64.45 per cent increase from 4053.23 million dollars in 2003-04 at 45.17 per cent.

Also, the bilateral trade between India and Pakistan grew fro 380.57 million dollars in 2004-05 to 450.66 million dollars in 2005-06.

UNI RT YA DS1420