India’s plastic exports for September 2019 declined by 16.8% to $649 million from $780 million in September 2018, as per data with the Plastics Export Promotion Council (Plexconcil).
The cumulative value of plastics export from India during April 2019 to September 2019 saw a negative growth of 5.9% to $4,324 million as against $4,594 million during the same period last year.
In September 2019, plastic raw materials witnessed year-on-year decline of 33.0%; followed by optical items (-19.2%); stationery/office/school supply (-9.7%); and moulded and extruded goods (-8.2%). Product categories that reported positive growth include human hair products (+29.5%); other plastic items (+12.1%); plastic sheet, film, plates etc (+3.5%); and packaging materials (+2.7%), the data said.
Within plastics raw materials, exports of linear low-density polyethylene were down 64.5% y-oy to $20.4 million in September 2019, due to lower sales to China, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Exports of Polyethylene terephthalate, having a viscosity number of 78 ml/g or higher, fell 35.6% year-on-year to $55.5 million in September 2019 due to lower sales to Uruguay and Algeria. India’s exports of Polypropylene witnessed a negative growth of 36.9% year-on-year to $36.7 million in September 2019 due to lower sales to Vietnam, Italy and Nepal. Even exports of Polyethylene having a specific gravity of 0.94 or more was down 37.6% y-o-y to $29.8 million in September 2019 due to lower sales to China. Among value-added plastics products, export of optical items from India was lower due to a decline in export of optical fibers, optical fibre bundles and cables, down 32.4% y-o-y to $16.8 million in September 2019 to countries like France and Russian Federation.
In addition, export of moulded and extruded goods was impacted as most of the major destinations, barring the U.S., bought lesser of these products from India. India’s exports of stationery/office/school supplies was hurt by lower sales to Nepal, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and France.
India’s plastics export in September 2019 was negative across all territories including, ASEAN (-34.0% year-on-year); Latin America & Caribbean (-30.1%); North-East Asia (-22.5%); Commonwealth of Independent States (-19.8%); European Union (-19.6%); Africa (-13.3%); South Asia (-11.4%); Middle East (-7.5%); and North America (-6.0%).
To counter the downward trend, Plexconcil is attracting foreign buyers to do more business with Indian companies, and public sector companies manufacturing raw materials as well as MSMEs manufacturing plastics will stand to gain out of this initiative.
