New Delhi: Gujarat has topped the Niti Aayog’s ‘Export Preparedness Index (EPI) 2020’ followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in second and third place respectively. This report was released by the government Wednesday. The report also states that Odisha is in the top 10 of the ‘Export Preparedness Index 2020’.
According to the report, six coastal states – Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Karnataka and Kerala – feature in the top 10 rankings. These states indicate the presence of strong enabling and facilitating factors to promote exports. Among the landlocked states, Rajasthan has performed the best, followed by Telangana and Haryana.
Among the Himalayan states, Uttarakhand topped the chart, followed by Tripura and Himachal Pradesh. Across the Union Territories, Delhi has performed the best, followed by Goa and Chandigarh.
The report noted that Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are two landlocked states that had initiated several measures to promote exports. Other states facing similar socio-economic challenges can look at the measures taken by Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Then they can try to implement them to grow their exports, the report noted.
Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar spoke at the launch of report. He said exports are an integral part of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. So India will have to keep striving to increase the share of exports in GDP and world trade. “We will try to double India’s share in world trade in the coming years,” Kumar stated.
The Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman pointed out that India’s per capita exports stood at USD 241, compared to South Korea’s USD 11,900 and China’s USD 18,000. “So there is a huge potential for growth of India’s exports,” Kumar said. “States must look at creating a separate department for exports promotion,” he added.
Kumar stated said there is a need to distinguish between coastal states and landlocked states because conditions for exports in coastal states and landlocked states are very different.
India’s merchandise exports have witnessed growth from USD 275.9 billion in 2016–17, to USD 303.5 billion in 2017– 18, and to USD 331 billion in 2018–19.
Niti Aayog in partnership with the Institute of Competitiveness released the first Export Preparedness Index (EPI) 2020. The EPI intends to identify challenges and opportunities and encourage a facilitative regulatory framework. The index ranked states on four key parameters – policy; business ecosystem; export ecosystem; export performance.
On policy parameters, Maharashtra topped the index followed by Gujarat and Jharkhand. On the business ecosystem parameter, Gujarat was ranked number one followed by Delhi and Tamil Nadu.
In the export ecosystem parameter, Maharashtra topped the Index followed by Odisha and Rajasthan.