Exports outlook 2021
Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) recently shared the 2021 exports outlook. Expressing a ray of hope and optimism, he hoped for the negative impact of Covid-19 to be behind the industry across the globe especially given the announcement of the vaccination drives. “We are confident that a V-shaped recovery will be witnessed in world trade and we will recover much more from what we lost in 2020,” he exclaimed. “Fortunately for us, the decline in exports in Q32020 and Q42020 has been largely addressed with even a few months of positive exports,” he claimed. Expecting FY2020 to end with exports of around USD 290 billion, he added, “looking into the excellent order booking position for chemical, plastics, electronics and networking products; we should endeavour to take exports to USD 350 billion, in 2021-22.” Admitting to the target being ambitious yet achievable subject to supply-side challenges being addressed. Reiterating that the exports growth was vital to clock eight per cent plus GDP growth and to reach the milestone of a USD five trillion valuation economy, he advised on the need to put in place a two-pronged export strategy : one focussing on sectors where major imports are happening and the other being to boost traditional sectors, important for exports as well as employment. He explained that the major contributor to global trade consists of ‘Electronics & Electricals’, ‘Machinery’, ‘Automobile’ together with non-automotive segments of ‘Pharma and Medical equipment’. Accounting for about 40 per cent of the global imports, he said, India’s current share in it was less than 0.9 per cent. Expressing satisfaction on the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, focussed on these sectors, he said, once the country attains production capabilities in these products, pushing exports at a brisk pace should not be a challenge. “Both for attracting exports led FDI and exports, we require robust FTAs with some of our major partners like the US, EU and the UK, which should be