Indian exports picking up: Trade bodies

Days after the country's exportsrecorded positive growth in January, leading trade bodies areexpecting that the outbound shipments will rise in the comingmonths as the uncertainty in global markets began to subside,officials said on Thursday.

The country's exports rose by 5.37 per cent year-on-year to USD 27.24 billion in January 2021, mainly driven byhealthy growth in pharmaceuticals and engineering sectors.

CII National Committee on EXIM chairman Sanjay Budhiasaid the growth was due to the measures taken by the centralgovernment.

The country's engineering exports grew by about 18.7per cent to USD 7,174.43 million in the last month.

Budhia said the uncertainty in global markets startedsubsiding as several countries move out from the lockdowns andthe vaccination programmes gain pace.

According to him, a recovery in overseas market hasled to increased demand for goods.

Budhia said Indian exports that have done well inJanuary include agri-products, electronic and engineeringgoods, pharmaceutical items, ores and minerals.

Another trade body EEPC India has also expressedsatisfaction over the increased shipments of engineeringproducts in the last month with exporters exuding confidenceabout the rise in external demand.

Engineering Export Promotion Council of India chairmanMahesh Desai said most of the members of the trade body arefrom the MSME sector, and a study suggested there has been arobust rise in demand in markets of the US, Europe and severalkey Asian economies.