Exports declerated by 2.89 per cent in the first half of the year and by five per cent in the period ended October of the same year, as per commerce ministry's latest data.

The officials do not have any precise estimate of the export growth, though they expect it to be in the range of two to three per cent only.

They attribute the none-too-happy performance in April-September 1998 to the "depression"in the world prices of steel, chemicals, raw cotton and fabrics. The fall has been to the extent of 20-30 per cent, the official stated.

The decline in steel prices hit exports of steel and ferro alloys and transport equipment, the two main sectors of the engineering industry. With the result the engineering group of exports declined by 19.27 per cent to dollar 1,731.99 million from dollar 2,145.47 millionin April-September 1997.

Exports of groundnut and oilmeals -- two other promising sectors -- also declined the former by as much as 83.31 per cernt and the latter by 47.50 per cent.

And unlike last year, when the country exported sugar worth about Rs.200 crore, there was no export this year. On the contrary, sugar was imported to meet the demand-supply gap. The recession in the steel industry has meant reduced intake by Japanese steel mills of iron ore from India. These mills lifted ore worth $148.39 million down by 35.41 per cent from $29.72 million in April-September last year. Another mineral item, exports of which declined during this period was granite.

In the above period, exports of cotton, yarn, fabrics, made ups etc dropped by 36.41 per cent from $1746.03 million to $1284.83 million. Virtually no export of cotton took place.

The performance of the electronics sector also turned out bad. Exports of electronic goods fell by 40.62 per cent from $392.52 million to $233.06 million. The officialssaid that there had been a 74.53 per cent in imports of project goods from $657.07 million to $1,146.80 million due to the government's permission to allow import of these goods by petroleum refineries, fertilisers, and power sectors at zero duty wihout any export obligation for setting up "mega"projects. The officials further said that imports of gold and silver went up by nearly 300 per cent following the fall in world prices of these metals. Imports rose from $622.15 million to $2,471.58 million. They claimed that imports had been coming through the "legal"channels.