Trade Blues

Trade Blues THE foreign trade data for the first half of the fiscal year had indicated a deficit of close to $ 3 billion. In the following two months, October and November, the country's foreign balances have fallen by a clean billion dollars, suggesting a further widening of the trade gap. The government has gone to some lengths in trying to explain away this jump in the rate of depiction of foreign exchange holdings. There is, official spokesmen have assured the media, no cause for alarm; it is a bunching of debt servicing obligations which accounts for the abruptly steep decline in foreign exchange reserves; once this temporary difficulty is over, the country's external accounts will revert to showing a reasonably comfortable balance of exchange holdings to the tune of $ 6 billion, perhaps even a bit more.