Government to take measures to support export sector: Jaitley

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that more support will be provided to exporters to give a boost to overseas shipments.

"The duty drawback scheme has been widened and deepened to include more products and countries. The government will continue to take measures to support the export sector,"

Jaitley said in his Budget speech for 2016-17. Under the scheme, the government refunds duties on imported inputs for export items.

Exports dipped for the 14th month in a row, down 13.6% in January to US$ 21 billion due to fall in shipments of petroleum and engineering goods, although trade deficit showed improvement.

Imports shrank 11 % to US$ 28.71 billion last month, resulting in a trade deficit of US$ 7.63 billion, lowest in eleven months. In February last year, the deficit was US$ 6.85 billion.

For the first 10 months of the current fiscal, cumulative exports declined by 17.65% to US$ 217.67 billion, as

against US$ 264.32 billion in April-January period of 2014-15.