Indian engineering exports defy Brexit fears, up 12% in July

Britain's decision to leave the European Union has not affected India's engineering exports to the UK, Germany and France. These destinations defied the general declining trend and displayed a positive growth in the manufacturing and high-tech exports, an analysis by the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) of India has found.

Engineering exports to Britain went up by over 12% to US$ 215 million in July 2016 from US$ 192 million in July 2015.

Shipments to Germany clocked in at US$ 200 million - up by over 19% from US$ 168 million in July 2015.

Exports to France were moderately higher by 2.29% - up to US$ 86 million from US$ 84 million for the period under review.

The engineering exports to UK are in line with the trend of the Britain's economy defying concerns which centered around the outcome of the 23 June referendum.

"Somehow, the reality has sunk in . Besides a quick decision on the change of the Prime Minister in UK too helped calm the nerves. New Prime Minister Teresa May is well respected , giving a re-assurance to the business community," Chairman of the EEPC India, TS Bhasin said.

Besides, another key indicator of UK retail sales in July also showed an increase of 1.4%. "From the engineering exports point of view, it is important to see that our shipments went up to UK despite about 11 per cent trade-weighted drop in prices of Pound Sterling, making Britain's imports expensive." Bhasin said.

The positive trend to UK and other key European markets comes in the face of an overall negative growth in India's engineering exports. After rising for the consecutive two months of May and June 2016, Indian engineering exports slipped yet again in July contracting by 12.11% as against a positive growth of 2.57% in the previous month.

Cumulative engineering exports continued to decline as engineering exports for the first four months of the current fiscal dropped by 5.82% to US$ 20.27 billion in Apr-July 2016-17 from US$ 21.53 billion during Apr-July 2015-16.