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Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have emerged as the key destinations for India’s engineering exports, which shrank by 17.4% during April 2015-February 2016, together accounting for $ 5.17 billion.
India’s cumulative engineering exports stood at $ 53.68 billion during April 2015-February 2016, falling from $ 64.94 billion during the corresponding period of 2014-15.
“The global trade has been going through a major crisis like situation with demand slowdown across different segments. Still, the neighbouring markets which are also members of the SAARC trade regime, have been contributing a significant chunk to the engineering exports,” EEPC India Chairman T.S. Bhasin said.
Bhasin said increased priorities should be given to these smaller economies as slowly-rising demand of engineering products in these countries would give a momentum to India’s engineering exports, thereby mitigating the loss from other parts of the world.
He highlighted certain engineering segments where these three countries have dominated the shipments:
Nepal topped the list of India’s steel exports, accounting for 8.4% of the total outbound shipments during April-February 2015-16. It bought $ 426 million of steel during the period, considerably above than the other major importing countries including China and the US.
Sri Lanka occupied the third place in India’s engineering exports, only behind the US and UAE, with shipments worth $ 2.63 billion during April-February 2015-16.
Exports to Nepal accounted for $ 1.2 billion while Bangladesh imported $ 1.3 billion. The engineering exports to the USA market was $ 6.31 billion while to the UAE it was $ 3.8 billion during the same period.
However, engineering exports in the top 25 countries taken together fell by 18.1% during April-February 2015-16.
