India’s exports, power consumption robust in first week of May

Amid a not-so-encouraging forecast for India’s economy in the April-June quarter, two data points — the country’s power consumption and exports in the first seven days of May — have raised some hope in the time of the pandemic.

While exports grew by 80 per cent to $7.04 billion during the first week of this month, power consumption went up by 25% to 26.24 billion units (BU) over the same period last year, showing consistent recovery in industrial and commercial demand of electricity.

Exports during the first week of May in 2020 stood at $3.91 billion. They were at $6.48 billion in the same period in 2019, data showed. Last month, exports had risen three-fold to $30.21 billion as against $10.17 billion in April, 2020.