Exporters anxious over Brexit slugfest

“EU accounted for over 22 per cent of Indian engineering exports between April-October this fiscal with shipments of merchandise aggregating close to $10 billion for the period. The recent events in the UK and the EU over the modalities of the exit deal may leave businesses there in a state of flux, thus impacting the trade environment,” said EEPC India Chairman Ravi Sehgal. The EU contributes maximum to the overall Indian exports, the council said. Besides UK within EU, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, Spain and the Netherlands are the major trading partners for the Indian engineering exporters.

According to a vertical break down of trade basket by the EEPC India, iron and steel, industrial machinery, automobiles, electrical machinery and components, aircraft and spacecraft parts, ships, boats and floating structures are the major and critical items of exports from India.

“For most of these items, there has been integrated supply chain across Europe with a single market so far. With no clarity emerging in the separation deal under negotiations and the political slugfest around it, new investment and growth could be a casualty, thus affecting the international suppliers as well,” Sehgal said.

He said, though EEPC India is keeping a close watch on the unfolding events, “our counterparts in Europe are equally confused and anxious about how the entire Brexit deal would play out and settle”.

He said the upheaval in the European markets, more so in UK due to Brexit, has come about at a time when “we were looking at expanding our global trade to shore up the country’s macros.”