India's engineering exports to China fall 50% in Oct: EEPC

Country's engineering exports to China dropped by nearly 50 per cent to $310 million in October due to slowdown in the economy of that country, sectoral body EEPC said today.

India's engineering exports to China stood at $612 million in the same month last year.

"While there is a contention that China's slowdown may not pinch us, it is clearly doing so as it also happens to be one of our main markets for exports," Anupam Shah, chairman of the Engineering Export Promotion Council of India, said in a statement.

The slowdown of the Chinese economy was also visible on India's exports of products of interest to China.

"For instance, the total exports of iron and steel which mainly go to China, went down by 18 per cent to $704 million in October 2014 from $858 million a year ago," EEPC said.

Troubles in western Europe too had a biting impact on Indian shipments of the engineering goods, it added.

The consignments to UK were down by 29 per cent to $169 million in October 2014 from $238 million a year ago, EEPC said.

Likewise, shipments to Italy were down 22 per cent to $127 mn from $163 mn. To Germany, exports of engineering items went down by over 4 per cent to $163 mn from $171 mn, the statement said.

Exports of engineering products declined 9.36 per cent to $5.03 billion in October 2014 over October 2013.

However, due to better showing in the previous months, the cumulative value of engineering exports recorded a positive growth of 18.46 per cent in the first seven months (April-October) of the current fiscal over the same period last year, the statement said.