FIEO President, Sharad Kumar Saraf has said that the global situation is becoming extremely challenging as rising protectionism is leading to uncertainty in global trade which will have adverse impact on it. Despite having moderate share in global trade, India’s exports have always followed the trend in global imports. Therefore, when global imports are declining, our exports are also likely to take a hit.
Currently, India’s merchandise exports during April-Nov, 2019 are down by about 1.99 percent. Therefore, we feel our goods exports may touch $330-340 bn in the current fiscal added Saraf. Fortunately, the order book positions of Indian exporters are very encouraging. The less volatility in our currency has also been a positive factor. The liquidity is also improving though we still have a lot of distance to cover. FIEO President also added that the infrastructure improvement and initiatives on the logistics front will impart further competitiveness to our exports. If the global situation improves, which is likely in the first half of 2020, we may look for 15 percent growth in exports during the next Financial Year.
FIEO Chief, however, reiterated that Indian exports have to be aligned with changing import patterns of global economy. 50 percent of the global imports today is accounted by electrical & electronics products, automobiles, machinery, petroleum products and plastics products. Unfortunately, the share of such products in our exports is less than 33 percent despite having petroleum products accounting for roughly half of it. Our global share in such products is much less than 1 percent. Sharad Kumar Saraf further added that India’s exports of high technology products are $20 bn, whereas Malaysia’s exports are $90 bn, Singapore $155 bn, South Korea $192 bn and China, a whopping, $652 bn.
While employment intensive sectors should be pushed in exports, the new strategy should focus on technology driven sectors as stated above. India having R&D advantage and professional manpower at its disposal should concentrate on such sectors where global trade is likely to rise further. FDI in high technology could also help in expanding our high technology exports and cornering a greater share in global imports thereby increasing our share to about 2 percent in the next 3 years, said FIEO President.
