Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde hopes for a turnaround in exports in the year to March 31, 2000, after growth slipped to close to zero last fiscal year against a targetted 20 percent.

"The optimist in me sees brighter prospects for our exports compared to what has been happening over the last few years," he said on Wednesday while unveiling the export-import policy for the coming year.

Hegde said he hoped for 10 percent growth but he refrained from setting a target after last year's dismal show.

Analysts share his vision of a turnaround.

"Cyclical factors such as global export volumes are approaching their recovery phase," an economist at a foreign bank said.

Commodity prices are at their lowest levels in over a decade, but the pressure on pricing could ease next year, analysts said.

"For much of last year, globaldeflationary pressures severely undermined producer pricing power. The likelihood of perkier demand conditions in 1999 should enable better pricing," said Vasan Shridharan, treasury economist at Standard Chartered Bank.

Indian exports will be able to realise better dollar earnings, he added.

Analysts said the new year will benefit from a lower base against which export growth will be measured and exports are technically poised for another boom cycle.

The International Monetary Fund in December forecast world gross domestic product would be 2.2 percent higher in 1999, maintaining the 2.2 percent growth expected for 1998.

Asia's GDP would be up 4.3 percent in 1999 as the region recovered from a Financial crisis, said the IMF, which estimated a 2.6 percent rise for 1998.

Sluggish industrial output notwithstanding, strong growth in agriculture would lead Indian exports next year, analysts said.

"Agricultural growth has picked up very well this year, and it comprises 20 percent of our export basket,"said an economist with a leading foreign institutional brokerage.

Agricultural output is expected to rise three to four pct in 1998/99 against a fall of 1.5 percent the previous year.

Analysts said they hoped the composition of Indian exports, said to be at the lower end of the value-added chain, would become more technology-intensive after the exim policy revealed special import licences for the export of branded goods.

Any hopes that the government would hint at a weaker currency to boost exports were laid to rest when Hegde said he did not believe a rupee devaluation was the solution.

Exporters agreed with him.

"For us even if the rupee depreciates, the export price in rupee terms gets adjusted," said Indrajit Deb, wholetime director of Williamson Financial Services Group, which also exports tea.

The Indian rupee has avoided the sharp and contagious depreciations suffered by Asian currencies over the past two years. But the rupee fell before the currency crisis and, if the 1990s are takentogether, it has tended to keep pace with its Asian competitors.