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According to the recent survey done by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), at the time when almost every industrial sector is expecting a negligible growth in exports during 2009-10, pharmaceutical exporters forecast a 16 per cent increase.
11 sectors were surveyed out of which five expect no expansion in exports, three expect modest growth of up to 5 per cent. In fact, 61 per cent of the respondents felt that overseas sale of Indian goods would either contract or remain flat in the year.
Exporters are of the say, that the country is not just facing dip in orders from the US and the EU, but also there is a decline in orders from others like West Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Japan.
Pharmaceutical exports from the country are expected to buck this trend and post a 13 per cent increase in overseas sale, the survey said. This could be because of lesser presence of Chinese pharma companies in the international market. And, expenditure on medicines is relatively inelastic to changes in income levels. However, the expected growth will be lower than the 23 per cent export growth in 2008-09.
In the recent report of The World Trade Organisation, the forecast was made that there will be a fall by 9 per cent in the global exports, the sharpest fall since World War II. In this backdrop, Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai had recently said that India’s exports in the current fiscal would remain constant and be at the same level as in the just-ended financial year 2008-09.
About half the respondents in the survey told Ficci that the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar has had only moderate impact on their earnings. A depreciating exchange rate against the greenback increases rupee earnings of exporters, and also makes Indian goods cheaper in foreign markets.
Even in the last fiscal year, many of the exporters had expected drop in their overseas sales. Handicrafts and marine product segment expect exports from their sectors to contract by a fourth.
Sectors that are expecting to witness an expansion in exports over 10 per cent include engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, rubber manufactured goods as well as glass and ceramics.
Final exports will be known by May 1, when the commerce ministry will reveal the export figures for 2008-09. In the 11 months up to February, overseas sales of Indian goods increased 7.3 per cent, against 23.7 per cent in the same period last year. Business Standard
April 6, 2009
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