Exporters are upbeat about the pick-up in shipments by the third quarter of the current fiscal with increased interest for Indian products from several countries.

“In the past few days there has been increased enquiry about products from the country and many are looking at alternative supply chain in place of Chinese products and the country seems to be emerging as a favourite destination,” Ajay Sahai, CEO of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said.

He said “there has been enquiry for products for which India was considered as a sourcing destination, clearly giving an indication that alternative sourcing destinations are being scouted by several countries to protect their value chain. The enquiries are coming from the US, Australia and EU and some have been converted into orders,” Sahai said.

He said manufacturing activity in select export related sectors have picked up. “We estimate that May will be better than April, but still 30-40 per cent down over last year. By July, contraction in exports could be closer to 20 per cent. Pharma, plastics, chemicals and some segments of engineering and electronics are better off compared with traditional sectors such as apparel, carpets, handicrafts and leather,” Sahai added.

“There are lot of scope for boosting farm exports from the country and the current situation of reverse migration of migrants could be used to set up units in rural India and boost exports of value added products,” Biswajit Dhar, trade economist of JNU, said.