Bengal commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen (right) with EEPC chairman Rakesh Shah in Calcutta on Friday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Nov. 10: The engineering export target of $23 billion for 2006-07 is likely to be revised in December and could cross $24 billion.

Engineering exports will replace that of gems and jewellery as the highest among the overall merchandise exports.

Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) members will meet ministry of commerce officials in December.

“With engineering exports emerging as the largest merchandise exports and $5 billion worth of exports already achieved during the first quarter of the current fiscal, a target of $24 billion could be easily achieved if not more,” said Rakesh Shah, chairman of EEPC.

Shah, along with Bengal minister for commerce and industry Nirupam Sen, launched the country’s first monthly journal on engineering exports.

“The first quarter is usually the toughest. However, engineering exports have recorded a 20 per cent increase in the first quarter from the year-ago period,” said Shah.

According to the revised figures, during 2005-06, engineering exports registered a growth of 25 per cent amounting to $20.2 billion compared with $16.2 billion in 2004-05.

Currently, over 7 per cent of total employment generated by export activity is in the engineering sector. Employment in the export-oriented engineering sector has increased by 92 per cent in the last five years against the overall growth of 50 per cent in all sectors taken together.

EEPC has set a target of an annual average growth of 15 per cent during the next five years and has already prepared a medium-term strategy paper to suggest various measures to be adopted by all stakeholders, including EEPC, the government and the exporting community to achieve this growth.

“The paper aims at doubling the export of engineering items from India in the next five years, promote export of value-added items and take India’s share in the world trade in engineering to 1 per cent during the same period,” said Shah.

Indian engineering exports have come a long way from $10 million in 1956-57 to $20.2 billion in 2005-06 and the key markets include the US, Belgium, Japan, Italy, France and the Netherlands.