The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today released monthly data on India's international trade in services for the month of November 2017.
 
As per RBI, the November service export stood at $15.39 billion – witnessing growth of 8.76% from $14.15 billion in the previous month.
 
On the other hand, service imports also rose by 10.88% to $9.65 billion in November 2017, compared to the import of $8.70 billion in October 2017.
 
Monthly data on services are provisional and would undergo revision when the balance of payments (BoP) data are released on a quarterly basis, states RBI.
 
Analysts at Edelweiss Financial Services recently said, “India’s exports have rebounded amid synchronous global recovery—first since 2011. If this momentum gathers pace, exports could well be the key lever of turnaround in the domestic economy.”
 
These analysts also highlighted three key challenges for India. Firstly, 2018 is likely to witness synchronous tightening of global liquidity (Fed and ECB), which may be suitable for DMs, but not necessarily for EMs, which have levered massively since 2008 (especially China).
 
Secondly, historically, Fed’s tightening is accompanied by widening US CAD (important source of USD for the global economy). This time, it’s not the case. In fact, weak USD could further shrink US CAD.
 
Finally, China’s stimulus of past two years is reversing (M1 growth slowing sharply), which could also weigh on global growth in 2018. Thus, we may see some moderation in global growth in 2018.
 
Yet, Edelweiss believes that two factors can help  - one is continued undershooting of US inflation (meaning very dovish Fed) and the second is continued capacity cuts in China.