Export figures for FY04, FY14, and FY24 show interesting trends

The Commerce Ministry has released the quick estimates of exports and imports figures for March 2024. The figures for the full year 2023-24 are now available, and that enables an assessment of the export figures for 2003-04, 2013-14, and 2023-24.

The total merchandise exports figures went up from $63.84 billion in 2003-04 to $314.40 billion in 2013-14 (a rise of $250.62 billion), and now stand at $437.06 billion (a rise of $122.65 billion). So, while the merchandise exports grew almost four-fold during 2004-14, they grew by a little over a third during 2014-24. The services exports, however, grew from $46 billion in 2003-04 to $167 billion in 2013-14 (a rise of $123 billion) and to $340 billion in 2023-24 (a rise of $173 billion from 2013-14). Thus the rise in exports of services is more than the rise in the exports of merchandise in the past ten years.

The chapter-wise disaggregated export figures are available up to April-january 2024. So, if the percentage shares, rather than absolute figures, of some major commodities are examined, some interesting trends emerge. First, the share of petroleum products (Chapter 27) in our exports basket has stagnated around 20 per cent in the past ten years. The share of gem and jewellery (Chapter 71) exports (7.7 per cent) have halved during the past 20 years. The share of pharmaceuticals (Chapter 30) has doubled in 20 years but still is only around 5 per cent.

The shares of chemicals (Chapters 28 and 29) at 5.2 per cent and farm, marine etc. products (Chapters 1 to 24) at 11.01 per cent have stagnated in 20 years. The share of cotton including yarn, fabrics etc. (Chapter 50) at 5.4 per cent has gone up from 3.9 per cent two decades back. The share of highly labour intensive readymade garments (Chapters 62 and 63) has gone down from 8 per cent to 3 per cent in 20 years. The success story is that of engineering products exports (Chapters 72 to 89) whose share in our total exports went up from 18.78 per cent in 2003-04 to 21.33 per cent in 2013-14, and now stands at 29.01 per cent. The share of other products has halved at 13.06 per cent in the past 20 years. From these figures, it is clear that engineering and petroleum products account for almost half of our exports.

A look at the destination of our exports shows that our shipments to our neighbours in South Asia at 5.8 per cent have stagnated in the past 10 years. Shipments to West Asia (15.38 per cent) are slightly higher than what it was 20 years back (14.74 per cent). Exports to East Asia have fallen from 24.93 per cent in 2003-04 to 20.25 per cent. Exports to North America (19.89 per cent) are almost the same as two decades back (19.60 per cent). In 20 years, Europe’s share of our exports has gone down from 24.54 per cent to 22.49 per cent.

The share of Latin America at 3.43 per cent has stagnated in the past 10 years. Only 6.03 per cent of our exports went to Africa in 200304 but that share went up to 9.96 per cent in 2013-14 and is now 10.46 per cent. Shipments to other destinations went up from 2.03 per cent in 2003-04 to 4.81 per cent in 2013-14 before coming down to 2.28 per cent in 2013-14.

So, the broad message is that North America, Europe and Asia take in 83.83 per cent of our exports. Hopefully, our policymakers will draw the right inferences and lessons from these figures.