Engineering exports to FTA nations show healthy growth: EEPC

India's engineering shipments to some countries with which it has inked Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), or preferential trade pacts, have shown a healthy growth during April-November, according to engineering exporters' body, EEPC India.
Besides the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Nations), India has operationalised FTAs with important trading partners including Japan and South Korea in the past few years.
Engineering exports to Japan grew by an impressive 17 per cent for the April-November in the current fiscal to USD 568 million from USD 485 million in the same period last year.
To South Korea, the engineering shipments saw a jump of over 13 per cent to USD 739 million during the period under review over the corresponding months of 2012-13.

"Japanese economy is doing rather well under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new economic policy direction while the manufacturing base in South Korea kept the momentum alive despite problems in the west," EEPC India Chairman Anupam Shah said.
However, he said, the exception of the trendline was seen in Singapore with which, India has a rather large base of bilateral trade including the engineering goods.

Exports of the engineering goods to this island nation in the April-November months saw a drop of 2.11 per cent to USD 1995 million from 1997 million a year ago.
Besides, engineering despatches to Sri Lanka went up by 18.57 per cent to USD 1,342 million for the period under review from USD 1,132 million a year ago. Likewise, shipments to Nepal were up 20.8 per cent to USD 577 million from USD 477 million.

On the other hand, western economies such as the US and Germany did not give Indian engineering exports much growth, though the base of trading volume is quite large. Although the shipments to the US dropped by 9.19 per cent to USD 3,909 million during April-November this fiscal from USD 4,305 million, the country is among India's largest destination.
The same holds true for Germany where the consignments fell by about six per cent, though the overall shipments were above USD 1,300 million level.
The basket of exports of engineering goods includes high-tech items like nuclear reactor parts, aerospace parts to automobile (motor vehicles, two-three wheelers, components), bicycles and parts, steel and iron products, non-ferrous metals, transport equipment etc.