Government restates export figures at $97.60bn

NEW DELHI: A senior Commerce Ministry official today got his figures wrong when he understated cumulative exports for the April-July period of the current financial year by $17.16 billion.

"The cumulative export for the period April to July has been $80.44 billion compared to April-July period 2011(figure of) $88.45 billion. Therefore, for the first four months of this year, the fall is minus 5.06 per cent," Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Anup Pujari told reporters here.

However, later in the day, the Commerce Ministry issued a statement correcting the April-July, 2012-13 exports figures at $97.60 billion, compared to $102.80 billion a year ago.

Earlier in December,2011 the Commerce Ministry had goofed up the trade data, over-stating the export data by $9 billion.

Similarly, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had to correct the core sector growth number for May. The correct figure was 3.8 per cent not 4.6 per cent as released earlier.

The DIPP as also the Commerce Department had cited "technical" reasons for the data mistakes.

Concerns have been raised, including by the Reserve Bank of India, over reliability of the data being put out by the official agencies.