Product-clusters, export promotion, and agricultural growth: A partial assessment of India's relative competitiveness in light of the agricultural export policy 2018

The Government of India announced Agricultural Export Policy in 2018 and aimed to double the exports to the tune of US$ 60 billion by the year 2022, thus to contribute doubling the income of farmers. The policy identifies a number of commodities and their target markets abroad, and promotes cluster-approach to realize the goal. While the commodities and target markets are identified, there is a need to understand relative competitiveness of India's competitors exporting the same commodities at the countries where India's major exports are dealt. In the present study, a sub-set of commodities identified in the AEP are chosen and India's major export markets are traced. Further, the countries that compete with India on same export markets are revealed using RCA indices for the TE 2019 and their relative strength is identified. Results show that India has tremendous potential to export castor oil and is much competitive than the rest. Onion and chilli are the other commodities where focus shall be laid. The country is competitive in these two commodities and ranks first, closely followed by Pakistan and China. Pepper is the other major commodity with substantial advantage. Indices are relatively less in grapes, cardamom, tea, banana, potatoes and oranges. The study concludes that while attempts are made to promote clusters aiming to improve exports, attention shall be paid on quality differences and other concerns with respect to the products origination from our competitors.