‘Engineering export crisis deepens, almost evaporating’

A 90% drop is seen in case of Malaysia, one of the top 25 destinations for Indian engineering exports The Dollar Business Bureau

Even China, the world’s largest metal consumer, disappointed Indian engineering exporters by accounting to a 36.35% y-o-y decline in January 2016

Continuing with declining trend since a year, India’s engineering export segment is facing severe hardships by almost losing out presence in its key global markets. This was evident in a statement by Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) to The Dollar Business, where in the Council termed situation as ‘almost evaporating’. According to the EEPC India analysis, the drop in country’s engineering exports has gone above 50% in many of its destination markets and the worst was seen in Malaysia, where the decline even crossed 90% ‘almost evaporating’ the market for the month of January 2016 , year-on-year(y-o-y). “It is getting quite bad…Look at Malaysia, one of the top 25 destinations for our exports. For January, 2016 the shipments there plummeted to mere $78.22 million from a sizeable $830.88 million a year ago. When close to a billion dollar disappears from a single market in just one of the sectors, the depth of the problems can be gauged,” said T S Bhasin, Chairman of the Council. While a 50% y-o-y drop to $484.12 million from $991.17 milion is seen in case of UAE, which is the second largest destination for Indian engineering products after the United States, a 43.88% drop is seen in case of West Asia and Middle East regions, where the exports came down to $803.39 million from $1.43 billion y-o-y. Even China, the world’s largest metal consumer, disappointed engineering exporters by accounting to a 36.35% decline in January to $124 million against $195 million year-on-year. “Out of the top 25 countries, 19 countries recorded negative growth in January 2016,” EEPC said. Product-wise, of the total 33 engineering products, 22 were said to have recorded contraction with a major decline in steel and iron, which fell by almost 50% to $355 million from $709 million y-o-y, followed by copper and its products, which was down by over 47% from $306 million to $160 million y-o-y. On the whole, engineering exports accounted for around 23% of total export basket for January 2016, witnessing a 28.07% y-o-y drop, the EEPC added.

March 07, 2016 | 02:20pm IST

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The Dollar Business Bureau - Mar 07, 2016 08:58 IST

‘Engineering export crisis deepens, almost evaporating’

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