According to the report released by the government think tank, Gujarat has topped the Niti Aayog’s Export Preparedness Index 2020 followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in the second and third place respectively
The report notes that in the top ten rankings, six out of 8 coastal states indicate the existence of good export enablers and facilitators. Rajasthan, led by Telangana and Haryana, was one of the most competitive states on the table.
Niti Aayog Vice President, Rajiv Kumar said exports are an integral part of Aatmanirbhar Bharat and that the country will continue to aspire to increase GDP and world trade exports.
“In the coming years, we are going to try to double the share of India in world trade,” he says.
The vice-chairman of Niti Aayog pointed out that India’s per capita exports are USD 241 compared to USD 11,900 in South Korea and China’s USD 18,000, hence there is a huge opportunity for Indian exports to increase.
Kumar said the Indian Government has made it clear that Production Linked Incentive (PLI) export schemes related to output are important.
He said that the variations between coastal and landlocked states need to be differentiated because export conditions in coastal and landlocked states are very different. Rapid export growth is an important element of long-term economic growth.
An advantageous environment helps a country to make a major contribution to global supply chains and to take advantage of interconnected production networks, Kant said.
India’s exports of goods have seen a rise from USD 275.9 billion in 2016–2017 to USD 303.5 billion for 2017–2018 to USD 331.0 billion for 2018–2019.
But the COVID-19 crisis was a major blow to the current fiscal situation. As a result, exports from India declined by 60% in April 2020.
Uttarakhand, Tripura and Himachal Pradesh, among the Himalayan states, announced that the best results have been obtained by Delhi across the Union Territories of the country, followed by Goa and Chandigarh.
The report claimed that Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are two states which have taken many export-friendly steps.
Other states that face similar socio-economic problems should study Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand’s measures and seek to enforce these measures to increase their exports, according to the report.
Niti Aayog published the first Export Preparedness Index (EPI) 2020 in collaboration with the Institute of Competitiveness.
The index listed four main parameters – Policy, Business ecosystem, Export ecosystem, and Export performance.
Besides, the index also reflects 11 sub-pillars- Export Promotion Policy, Institutional Framework, Business Environment, Infrastructure, Transport Connectivity, Access to Finance, Export Infrastructure, Trade Support, R&D Infrastructure, Export Diversification, and Growth Orientation.
