India’s Commerce Ministry is working on a new agricultural export policy. The policy will contribute to doubling the incomes of India’s farmers, it is said. While details will be unveiled in course of time, data of the last four years are far from flattering.
Since 2014-15, India’s agricultural goods exports have remained trapped in the $35-40 billion range while the share of agriculture to total exports too has been almost rigid, at 12.5-13 per cent. This suggests no significant improvement in export.
The Commerce Ministry has much to answer for in terms of its export-promotion efforts in the last four years. Onlookers sometimes assume that any increase in export might have been propped by a falling rupee rather than by any well-thought-through strategy to deliver competitive edge to export goods.
Some of the significant commodities of export from the country include rice, marine products, raw cotton, fruits and vegetables worth $2.4 billion and coffee, tobacco, tea and cashew fetching less than $1 billion each.
Regarding India’s agri export, a look at imports presents a skewed picture and inspires no confidence. The value of export becomes negligible when one looks at the value of import of related products. An is fruits and vegetables export, for which India earns $2.4 billion, but on import of fresh fruits it spends $1.9 billion. Often, these imports may be inescapable, either (raw material) to produce an export product or to meet specific domestic demand.
According to an article on hellenicshippingnews.com, the government’s track record of last four years leaves much to be desired. Within the government, there seems to be little commercial intelligence capability and there is none who is able to strategically think about export promotion.
