Telangana: Exports growing to land of dreams

Hyderabad: America is the most favourite destination for Telangana with regard to export of goods from the State. Nearly 28 per cent of the exports from Telangana were to the USA, followed by China and Russia, according to the Socio Economic Outlook report.

Moving forward, the State Government has now started an initiative on the One District One Product scheme, which aims to identify and promote products that have a high market potential for both export promotion and import substitution. The Government issued orders in November 2020 to set up District Level Export Promotion Committees to prepare and implement District Export Plans with the support of the District Collector.

It is expected that Telangana would emerge as one of the top States in the exports soon as the manufacturing sector was getting huge investment in the recent years. The Socio Economic Outlook said that the unique industrial policy –TSiPASS helped in promoting investments in the manufacturing sector in a big way.

In terms of total goods exports, Telangana started from Rs 35,444 crore in 2015-16 and reached Rs 52,170 crore in 2019- 20, with a strong compounded annual growth rate of 10.2 per cent per annum over this period. "The top three destinations of goods exported from the State include the USA, China (5.6 per cent ), Russia (3.6), UAE (3.5), Bangladesh (3.5), Germany (2.2), UK (2.1) and 1.9 per cent of the total exports were made to Japan from Telangana. The report said that the State ranked 6th in export preparedness (2nd among landlocked States) in the country.

It further said that the NITI Aayog's Export Performance Index Report 2020 stated that Telangana ranked 5th on the Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) index.

Among all goods exports, pharmaceutical products constituted 32 per cent of the total exports to other countries.

The share of the organic chemicals in the total merchandise exports from Telangana was 30.5 per cent, electrical machinery, equipment and parts (4.5 per cent), Salt, Sulphur, Plastering material (3.2), Plastic and articles thereof (1.0), paper and paperboard (0.8) and other exports were 28 per cent.

The report said that pharmaceutical products are the largest exported items from the state, accounting for approximately one-third of all exports. The state is also successfully diversifying its export basket, with rapid growth in the sectors such as plastic and paper products.

Growth in IT exports also doubled in the last six years from Telangana, the report said. The IT exports in 2014-15 was 66, 276 crore and it reached to Rs 1,28, 807 crore in 2019-20 from Telangana.