Ministry of Commerce and Trade says that the total import of “sensitive” items during April-May 2006 has been Rs.2792 crores (USD 606 million) compared to Rs.2524 crore (USD 548 million) last year or an increase of 10.6%. Imports values of all items was at Rs. 116,523 crore (USD 25.33 billion) up from Rs. 91,595 crore (USD 19.91 billion) or up 27.2% for the same period last year. However, the value of imported “sensitive” items has marginally fallen from 2.8% of total imports to 2.4%.

Spices, tea, coffee, and alcoholic beverages imports have fallen while imports of edible oil, fruits, vegetables (including nuts), cotton & silk, products of SSI, rubber, automobiles, marble & Granite, and milk and milk products have grown. An interesting element of the edible oil (soybean and palm oil) import is that while crude numbers has gone up, refined oil has come down leading to the positive conclusion that the nation has upgraded its edible oil refining capacity.

Another pattern of import of sensitive items is that there is an increase in imports from Indonesia, Argentina, United States of America, China P RP, Sri Lanka DSR, Cote D’ Ivory, Germany, Japan, Australia, Afghanistan TIS etc. while there is a decline from Malaysia, Brazil, Egypt, Benin, and Vietnam