Composition of Indian exports has registered a number of structural changes during the planning period. There has been a decline in the importance of agricultural and allied products and a substantial increase in the importance of manufactured products.
The share of agricultural and allied products in total exports declined considerably from 41.2% in 1960 61 to 11.4% in 2007-08 while that of manufactured products increased from 45.3% 10 68.6% over the same period. Some of the imported items of India’s exports are as follows:
(i) Engineering goods is the biggest item of India’s exports at present. Its share has increased from a meager 3.4% in I960 61 to 23.1% in 2007-08 with export earnings of $36,722 million. Since 2004-05, engineering goods have occupied the first place in India’s export earnings.
(ii) During recent years, exports of petroleum products increased significantly. It was $11,867 million in 2005 -06 contributing 11.5% of total export earnings. Their exports rose to $24,869 million in 2007-08 thus increasing its share to 15.6 per cent.
(iii) As a result of industrialisation, exports of chemicals and allied products have increased tremendously from $ 39 million in 1970-71 to $ 20,454 million in 2007 08 contributing 12.9% in total exports earnings and occupied third place.
(iv) Gems and jewellery occupy the fourth place in India’s exports. Their export has increased from $ % million (4.7%) in 1970-71 to $ 19,657 million (12.4%) in 2007-08. During 2007- 08, gems and jewellery contributed about 12.4 per cent of India’s total commodity exports.
(v) Export of readymade garments has emerged as an important foreign exchange earner in recent years. In 1970-71 export of readymade garments was only $ 2 million. In 2007- 08, this rose to $ 9,492 million i.e. 6.0 per cent of total export earnings.
(vi) Export earnings from cotton yarn, fabrics, made-up etc. was $4.51 1 million in 2007-08 contributing 2.8%> of total earnings.
(vii) Exports of iron-ore have increased significantly from $1,126 million in 2003-04 to $5,745 million in 2007-08 thus increasing the share from 1.8%; to 3.6%) in the same period.
(viii) Other important items of India’s exports in 2007-08 are leather and leather manufacturers (2. 1 %), rice (1.8%), fish and fish preparations (1.1 %). tea (0.3%), jute (0.2%). etc.
(ix) In addition to changes in composition of merchandise exports, it is also necessary to emphasize sharp rise in service exports since 1991 and changes in composition of service exports. Between 1992 and 2007-08, India’s export of services increased from $4.9 billion to $90.1 billion.
As composition of service exports is concerned, the relative share of travel and transportation declined from 64 percent in 1995-96 to 23.7 percent in 2007- 08 while that of software services increased from 10 per cent lo 44.7 per cent over the same period.
Export of software services reached a level of $40.3 billion in 2007-08 recording a growth of 28.8 per cent. In fact, software export growth has been consistently around 30.0 per cent.
(x) Another promising area that is emerging is project exports. It has been found by other countries that an Indian company is more appropriate in projects relating to hydro-power, irrigation, transportation and water supply system. As a result, an export of projects and services is increasing.