New Delhi, February 3 Exports of major agriculture and processed products, broadly divided under 27 categories by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), are likely to perform better in the current fiscal than even previous year when there was record 23.8 per cent growth mainly due to low base effect, indicating $60 billion target is still achievable.
The APEDA-promoted products have nearly 50 per cent share in the country’s overall agricultural export of $41.25 billion (in 2020-21), whereas marine products are the second most contributor with 14 per cent share, followed by spices with 10 per cent share.
During April-November 2021-22, APEDA’s exports grew by 24.86 per cent to $15.16 billion from the corresponding period. Exports of marine products registered a growth of 35 per cent to $6.1 billion during April-December FY22 compared with $4.5 billion year-ago.
A maiden export policy for the farm sector was announced in 2018 with the target to double the agricultural exports to $ 60 billion by 2022-23.
Diverse products
“The very fact that the share of top 10 products in our basket have declined during eights months until November shows that the performance of other products have gone up. This is a good sign as it proves the potential of diverse products the country have and a little bit of extra focus will make a big difference in the next few years,” said M Angamuthu, chairman of APEDA.
In the current fiscal, the exports of top 10 products such as basmati and non-basmati rice, buffalo meat, groundnuts, processed fruits and vegetables, maize, fresh onions, juices and nuts have increased by 13.3 per cent to $11.16 billion (April-November) and having a share of 74 per cent, whereas the share of the top 10 products was 81 per cent in the year-ago period. But, the top 10 products in last fiscal grew by 31.4 per cent to $16.26 billion compared with the previous year.
On the high growth of agri products last year, Angamuthu said: “The base was low as exports had dropped in 2019-20 to $16.7 billion from a level of over $19 billion. Besides, the demand also was quite high after the pandemic as there was real concern for food products, globally. It was a big challenge for us to sustain the growth momentum of last year and so far our efforts have been successful.” APEDA is positive for the remaining period of this fiscal, too, he said.
Commenting about performance of India's export in top 10 countries, Angamuthu said APEDA products to Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Iraq and Iran have recorded negative growth this year (April- November), from the year-ago period, while it is higher in remaining six countries – the US, the UAE, Nepal, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Agri exports to Bangladesh have increased over three times to $1.87 billion from $524.61 million. Shipments to the UAE, Indonesia and Malaysia have registered over 30 per cent growth during this period.