Business Across Borders 2021

17 The way forward While COVID-19 pandemic has significantly hampered India’s exports sector, it has also highlighted few opportunities that Indian exporters can seize on. However, broad-based recovery in India’s exports would largely depend on the increase in demand from top 10 export destinations, as India’s almost 50% of exports are routed to these countries. Amongst sectors, India’s pharmaceutical industry is expected to be the major beneficiary in terms of exports share. The large number of new abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) approvals received by the Indian pharmaceutical companies and commitment shown by India for supply of COVID-19 vaccine to other countries are expected to boost pharmaceutical exports in the near future. In case of agricultural products, policy decisions like the deregulation of various agricultural commodities from the ambit of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) and taking out many agricultural products from Essential Commodities Act are expected to provide substantial impetus to the agricultural exports in the coming years. Besides, post COVID-19, many global companies would emphasize on diversifying their supply chain systems in order to make them more resilient. This would create new opportunities for the domestic exports sector as it would enable them to enhance their integration in the global value chain. Going forward, in order to achieve India’s true exports potential, two areas namely technology upgradation&digitization and upskilling would need particular focus. The Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme has played a crucial role in modernizing and improving competitiveness of Indian textile industry. This needs to be replicated especially in food processing andMSME segment. In case of upskilling, the government has already launched initiatives like Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. Such skill training platforms should be further linked to export-oriented units. This will help in providing high skilled labour to the export industries, in turn improving competitiveness of the domestic exports sector. Moreover, public investment in logistics infrastructure and a structured policy framework would also support in achieving higher exports growth targets. Dun & Bradstreet