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India's core group exports surged 27.7 per cent in October with growth being particularly strong in categories such as engineering goods, electronic goods, chemicals, textiles, marine products and rice, according to a CRISIL report released on Monday.  

Growth improved for key core sectors such as engineering goods (39.4 per cent vs 10.6 per cent), drugs and pharmaceuticals (8.2 per cent vs 7.2 per cent), organic and inorganic chemicals (27.4 per cent vs 11.2 per cent) and electronic goods (45.7 per cent vs 7.9 per cent), the report highlights.

Performance is healthy for agricultural exports as well.

Rice exports surged 85.8 per cent on-year in October, following the 24.9 per cent rise in the previous month, owing to the government removing curbs on overseas shipments of basmati and non-basmati rice.

Cashews (7.2 per cent vs 2.2 per cent), fruits and vegetables (15.9 per cent vs 8.4 per cent), tea (9.3 per cent vs 5.7 per cent), and spices (30.9 per cent vs 26.7 per cent) also saw higher positive growth, the report highlights.

Within the labour-intensive sectors, exports continued to do well, except for ceramic products and glassware ((-)6.1 per cent on-year in October vs (-)10.9 per cent in September).

On the other hand, exports of gems and jewellery (8.8 per cent vs (-)11.5 per cent), readymade garment textiles (35.1 per cent vs 17.3 per cent), carpets (16.8 per cent vs 14.9 per cent), cotton yarn, fabrics, handloom products (7 per cent vs 3.5 per cent), handicrafts (32.7 per cent vs 48.1 per cent), leather and leather products (12.3 per cent vs 8.9 per cent) saw healthy positive growth, according to the report.

Within the import sectors, gold ((-)1.4 per cent vs 6.9 per cent) and pearl and precious and semi-precious stones ((-)29. per cent vs (-)21.6 per cent) imports fell.

Imports of electrical and non-electrical remained positive but slowed to 8.7 per cent on-year from 17.4 per cent.

Another category that saw strong import growth was vegetable oils, which grew 50.9 per cent on-year, compared with (-)23.2 per cent on-year's previous month, the report added.

India’s overall merchandise exports staged a strong comeback growing 17.3 per cent on-year in October, the fastest in 28 months to touch $ 39.2 billion. The country’s services exports grew 14.6 per cent on-year in September, up from 5.7 per cent in August. Services imports grew at 13.2 per cent on-year versus 8.8 per cent. Hence, the services trade surplus rose to $16.1 billion in September compared with $13.8 billion in September 2023 and $13.9 billion in August 2024. This is the highest surplus post-January 2024, when it was $16.2 billion, the report added.