EEPC eyes 20% rise in exports in FY11

The Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) is expecting a 20 per cent increase in exports at over $40 billion in 2010-11 compared to last fiscal.

Exports had dropped nearly 19 per cent in 2009-10 to $32.7 billion owing to the global meltdown in European countries and the US, major markets for engineering products, EEPC India Chairman Aman Chadha told PTI here.

"Now, since the economy is bouncing back, we expect to attain a growth of nearly 20 per cent in exports in 2010-11, as compared to the year-ago period," he said.
    
Engineering exports in 2008-09 stood at $40.5 billion.
    
Chadha said that EEPC was now looking at other "untapped" markets for its products. "Since we suffered a major setback in the UK and USA markets, we are now looking at developing markets. These would give an impetus to our engineering exports," he said.
    
Latin American countries, the African and the CIS regions are some of the markets which companies need to look at, Chadha said.

Companies should also export finished products, he said.
    
"We need to encourage more and more companies to manufacture and export finished products instead of engineering components. Countries like China and Vietnam are selling such products at much cheaper rates than India. There is a need to change the export portfolio by adopting new technologies," he added.