BHUBANESWAR: Odisha bore the brunt of global economic slowdown as export of goods and products from the State plunged by around 10 per cent in 2018-19 fiscal.
Odisha Economic Survey 2019-20 revealed that the state, which earned the tag of ‘Champion State’ in exports for a record Rs 40,872 crore external trade in 2016-17 against Rs 19,082 crore in 2015-16, managed to export goods and products worth Rs 47,619.6 crore in 2018-19 against export of products worth Rs 52,677.09 crore in 2017-18.
The export of goods from Odisha in the last five financial years has shown an increasing trend except for 2015-16 and 2018-19 fiscal.
“The value of exports in 2018-19 decreased due to global economic slowdown,” the survey said. The global economic meltdown resulted in loss of export by around 5,057 crore for the State in the previous fiscal.
The state exports products of 11 different categories such as metallurgical, engineering-chemical and allied, mineral, agriculture and forest, marine, handloom, handicraft, textile, pharmaceutical, software’s and electronics and other services.
Out of these categories, metallurgy is dominant and contributes 55 per cent of the total in 2018-19. Mineral category constitutes the second highest exporting item contributing 20 per cent of the total value of exports during the year. The other leading categories are Engineering/Chemical and Allied (Rs 5415.62 crore), Software and Electronics (Rs 3500 crore) and Marine (Rs 2825.52 crore).
The export of metallurgical items, however, came down to Rs 26,082.97 crore in 2018-19 against Rs 31,5666.46 crore in 2017-18, Similarly, export of engineering, chemical and allied products came down to Rs 5,415.62 crore against Rs 5,892.73 crore in 2017-18. Foreign trade of marine, software and electronics products also remained low in the last fiscal compared to 2017-18.
The survey, however, termed the plunge in export as ‘marginal’ and maintained that, “Having diverse agro-climatic zones, above national average forest cover and high deposit of mineral resources, Odisha has growth potential in external trade due to its export-friendly policies and government incentives.”