Developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America were the primary target of Indian exporters in April-December 2011. These nations cumulatively accounted for 40.3 per cent of Indian exports in the period. A sizeable chunk of India’s imports, at 33.4 per cent, also came from these countries.

However, in terms of their percentage share of overall exports, shipments to Asian developing economies have declined to 29.3 per cent in the first nine months of FY 12 from 30.9 per cent in the previous fiscal. In particular, the export share of South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations dipped to 4.1 per cent from 5.1 per cent and the share of shipments to China fell from 7.8 per cent to 5.8 per cent.

In contrast, the share of Latin American countries in the overall exports rose to 4.4 per cent from 4 per cent. The share of African exports remained constant at 6.6 per cent.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations were the next biggest destination for exports. While the share of these countries in India’s exports remained constant at 33.6 per cent during 2010-11 as well as the April-December 2011 period, the share of exports to Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declined sharply from 22.3 per cent to 18.5 per cent.

Of the OECD exports, the European Union’s share stood at 17.5 per cent, while US shipments amounted to 11.1 per cent. Developed countries in Asia and Oceania were the focus of 1.7 per cent of outbound trade and Eastern Europe accounted for another 1.1 per cent. The decline in the share of most of these markets in India’s total exports was more than made up by a sharp rise in exports to the new markets during April-December, 2011. These destinations accounted for 6.5 per cent of the total outbound shipments during the nine-month period. Exports to these new markets categorised as ‘others/unspecified’ by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics stood at 1.4 per cent in FY2010-11.

However, the bulk of India’s imports (34.6 per cent) were from OPEC, which was primarily due to the country’s dependence on foreign oil to meet its energy requirement. China increased its share of India’s imports to 12.4 per cent from 11.8 per cent. The OECD, on the other hand, saw its share of India’s imports reduce from 30.6 per cent to 30 per cent, while Eastern Europe’s share rose from 1.5 per cent to 1.6 per cent. In contrast, ‘other/unspecified’ countries witnessed their share of India’s imports decline to 0.4 per cent from 1.3 per cent.

> arvind.jayaram@thehindu.co.in

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