This has got to be the biggest ever conundrum thrown up by the government’s official statistics machinery: according to the directorate-general of commercial intelligence & statistics (DGCIS), India’s merchandise exports rose by 12% in 2008-09, instead of just 3.4% as initially estimated.

The huge mark-up in the latest data released by the commerce ministry has left officials scurrying to recheck the numbers, as it will call into question the very basis of the stimulus packages, including tax write-offs, that the government offered to exporters. “We are rechecking the DGCIS numbers and cannot comment further until we know the actual figures,” commerce secretary Rahul Khullar told FE.

The difference between the initial estimates and revised figures released this month are surprising as both are collated by the same agency, the DGCIS, which is the nodal agency for monitoring the value of India’s foreign trade. The figures, posted on its website, puts India’s revised exports in 2008-09 at $182.63 billion, a growth of 12%, from the original estimate of $168.7 billion, or an annual growth of just 3.4%.

A month-wise comparison of the data shows the sharpest differences in February and March 2009. The new data shows exports in February expanded 9.11% ($16.82 billion), while in March it increased 17.9% ($22.79 billion). According to provisional data in commerce ministry press releases earlier this year, exports in February had dipped 23.3% ($16.82 billion), while in March it had contracted 34% ($15.56 billion).

Significantly, RBI, which sources data from DGCIS, has not revised its foreign trade numbers so far. RBI data still shows that India’s exports have been in negative territory since October 2008. RBI captures actual cash flows resulting from exports. The Kolkata-based DGCIS, on the other hand, uses computerised data of port bookings--export and import--to compile its figures. Where the system is manual, it uses sampling.

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