The week in charts: Govt’s festive bonanza, exports growth, inflation woes

livemint.com:

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Every Friday, Plain Facts publishes a compilation of data-based insights, complete with easy-to-read charts, to help you delve deeper into the stories reported by Mint in the week gone by. India's exports saw mild growth in September after a gap of two months, while the Union Cabinet made a slew of announcements for central government employees and farmers, among others.

India's merchandise exports saw a marginal uptick of 0.5% to $34.58 billion in September after a gap of two months. At the same time, the growth in imports slowed down compared to the previous months, mainly driven by lower gold imports. Consequently, the trade deficit narrowed to a five-month low of $20.78 billion.

The growth in core exports (non-oil and non-gold exports) was relatively better, at 9.2%, driven by strong growth in engineering goods (10.6%), electronics goods (7.9%) and chemicals (7.2%), a report by Barclays noted. India's retail inflation rose to a nine-month high of 5.49% in September, primarily due to a dissipating base effect and a sharp rise in vegetable inflation, which soared to a 14-month high of 35.99%. Overall food inflation rose to 9.24% from 5.66% the previous month, adding volatility to the headline inflation and reducing the possibility of a rate cut in December.

Oil and fats also added to the inflationary pressures, shifting from the deflation zone in August to the inflation zone in September. ₹9,448 crore: This is the combined cost to be borne by the government per annum due to the hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) to central government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali. The Union Cabinet has announced a 3% hike in DA, taking the total rise to 53% of basic