India's next big leap in manufacturing exports on global ground is sustainable, asserts Neelkanth Mishra

Neelkanth Mishra, the Co-Head of Equity Strategy, Asia Pacific and India Equity Strategist, Securities Research, at Credit Suisse is an expert on metals and mining, Indian pharmaceuticals. Before joining Credit Suisse, he was a Senior Technical Architect with Infosys Technologies. He has also worked with Hindustan Lever Limited and has been an entrepreneur.

Given his wide spectrum of expertise and experience, his outlook on the Indian manufacturing sector is worthy of consideration. While in the last decade, contribution of the manufacturing sector to our GDP has shrunk from 16% to 13%, but Mishra feels that manufacturing exports can be the game changer and can add 2.5% to GDP in five years, which could be substantial given India is a US$ 3 trillion economy.

That said, the impetus to the sector given by the Government through various PLI Schemes and its vision of “Make In India” has given a new ray of hope to various segments in manufacturing sectors to compete globally in Electronics, Specialty Chemicals, Pharmaceutical and Auto Sector.

While the global share of goods exports was at a record high of 1.9% in CY2021, Mishra feels that the Government’s ambition to capture a bigger share, demands nothing less than agility and adaptiveness by all the stakeholders – Central and State Governments and the Manufacturers.

China+1 has been a key driver for the demand for Indian manufactured goods globally. Together with this, sectors like speciality chemicals have come of age and ready to take bigger bets and grow their competitiveness on a global front, maintains Mishra.

His optimism does make a strong case for the homegrown manufacturing sector and its export potential, provided the capacity bottlenecks, infrastructure constraints and skill development are proactively addressed.

Neelkanth Mishra has been rated among the best analysts in India by the Institutional Investor and Asia Money polls. He is part of the Advisory Council to India’s Fifteenth Finance Commission and has been an advisor to committees appointed by the Government of India – such as the Revenue Neutral Rate Committee on Goods and Services Tax and the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Review Committee.