Bhoomika Singh
According to the provisional data released by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), the overall export of agricultural and processed food products increased to US$ 9,598 million in April-July 2022 from US$ 7,397 million over the same period of the last fiscal.
The exports of agricultural and processed food products rose by 30 per cent in the first four months of the current Financial Year 2022-23 (April-July) in comparison to the corresponding period of FY 2021-22.
For the year 2022-23, an export target of US$ 23.56 billion has been fixed for the agricultural and processed food products basket and export of US$ 9.59 billion have already been achieved in the first four months of the current fiscal.
As per the DGCI&S provisional data, fresh fruits & vegetables registered a four per cent growth, while processed fruits and vegetables recorded a significant growth of 51 per cent (April-July, 2022) in comparison to the corresponding months of the previous year.
From April-July, 2021, fresh fruits and vegetables were exported to the tune of US$ 498 million which increased to US$ 517 million in the corresponding months of the current fiscal. Exports of processed F&V jumped to US$ 665 million in four months of the current fiscal from US$ 441million in the corresponding months of the previous year.
Also, processed food products like cereals and miscellaneous processed items reported a growth of 37.75 per cent and 35.26 per cent respectively in comparison to the first four months of the previous year.
The export of meat, dairy & poultry products increased by 11.69 per cent and the export of other cereals recorded a growth of 22.26 per cent in four months of the current fiscal. The dairy products alone recorded a growth of 61.91 per cent as its export rose to US$ 247 million in the first four months of the current fiscal from US$ 153 million in the corresponding months of the previous year.
Other cereals’ export increased from US$ 334 million in April-July 2021to to US$ 408 million in April-July 2022 and the export of livestock products increased from US$ 1279 million in April-July 2021 to US$ 1428 million in April-July 2022.
As per the DGCI&S data, the country’s agricultural products exports had grown by 19.92 per cent during 2021-22 to touch US$ 50.21 billion. The growth rate is significant as it is over and above the growth of 17.66 per cent at US$ 41.87 billion achieved in 2020-21 and has been achieved in spite of unprecedented logistical challenges in the form of high freight rates and container shortages, etc.
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In 2021-22, agricultural and processed food products were exported to the tune of US$ 25.6 billion, which was around 51 per cent of India’s total agricultural goods exports of more than US$ 50 billion.
