India broke into the top 10 list of agricultural produce exporterswith a sizeable share in the export of rice, cotton, soya beans and meat, according to a World Trade Organization (WTO) report on the trends in world agricultural trade in the past 25 years.
In 2019, Mexico and India, with 3.4% and 3.1% share in global agri exports, respectively, replaced Malaysia (7th) and New Zealand (9th) as the largest exporters, while the US, which topped the list in 1995 (22.2%), was overtaken by the European Union in 2019 (16.1%). The US’s share fell to 13.8%.
In a report, “Reforms to promote agri exports” released earlier this year, the commerce ministry had said that the government’s consistent and concerted endeavours to usher in reforms to boost agricultural exports have been highly fruitful. Despite the unprecedented global pandemic, India has been able to step in to meet the increased global demand, emerging as a significant global supplier of food and other essential agricultural products.
However, India lagged behind as a value-added contributor to world agri exports. India’s share of foreign value-added content in its agri exports was also low at 3.8% primarily due to high tariffs on agri imports to protect the domestic market.
Source : Economic Times
