Export Temples of India

Call it continuation of a tradition dedicated to India's foreign trade, this year too, The Dollar Business trekked far and wide to explore some of the lesser known export clusters of India. And like every other year in the past, this year too saw us digging out some unheard facts from across these hotspots of India's exports. As enthusiasts of foreign trade, it is but necessary for us to understand the opportunities and challenges that these export clusters face. It is the government's goal to make these clusters the strong pole that will help the nation vault over the ambitious $900 billion bar in exports by FY2020. Is the government 'walking the talk' when it comes to improving the global competitiveness of these clusters? Are the central and state agencies fulfilling their mandates of creating common facilities to help small entrepreneurs explore global markets? Are initiatives like 'Make in India' and 'Skill India' making a difference on the ground? These export clusters, which contribute significantly to India's export basket, lack the visibility and the attention they deserve. For the third year in a row, The Dollar Business explores the length and breadth of the country to bring to its readers some ground realities from a handful of India's less-celebrated clusters of export excellence.

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There was a palpable excitement in the editorial team when in mid-July we sat down to decide on the centres of export excellence, that The Dollar Business would visit, for this year’s edition of the 'Export Temples of India'. It is a pilgrimage that we make every year to the lesser-known export hubs, and being India’s only magazine that caters to foreign trade, rightly so, these are truly our temples.

This year, in keeping with tradition, The Dollar Business team spread out across the length and breadth of the country, to bring to its readers, the state of exports from 12 different MSME clusters. The clusters selected this year ranged from the scenic Sikkim for its organic produce to the much maligned Vapi (reported to be one of the most environmentally degraded regions in the world) for dyes and chemical dyes, and from Nashik famous for its grapes to Coimbatore known as the ‘Pump City of India'. With India’s exports in decline over the last year and a half, it was necessary to put feet on the ground to look at the realities of our export clusters with our own eyes.

FTP & MSMEs