India’s engineering exports breached the critical $50 billion mark growing an aggressive pace of over 80 per cent during the April-February period of the current fiscal. The exports are expected to end the fiscal with $57 billion.
The impressive export performance in the engineering sector has come on the back of strong demand from the US and the developing markets of Latin American countries, exporters said.
Exports for the 11 month period of 2010-11 stood at $52.7 billion as against $29.14 billion in the last fiscal, according to the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EPCH) data.
In February 2011, the engineering exports grew by 75 per cent to $7 billion compared to $4 billion in the same period last fiscal. ``We have been getting a good number of orders from the US, Latin American and Middle East markets. We expect exports to touch $57 billion by the end of the current fiscal,’’ EPCH Executive Director, R. Maitra said.
These exports would have been still, higher if there were no financial problems in Europe. The European market is still sluggish, Mr. Maitra said.
Of the $32.5 billion engineering exports in 2009-10, the US accounted for over 30 per cent of the shipments. In its strategy to double India's exports to $450 billion by 2014, engineering exports are set to play a major role. Engineering export include exports of goods, transport equipment, capital goods, other machinery, equipment and light engineering products like castings, forgings and fasteners.