India''s engineering outsourcing market to touch $30 billion by 2015: EEPC

Mumbai: India''s engineering process outsourcing (EPO) market is expected to touch $30 billion by 2015, the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) said in a strategy paper.

The study, `Growth of Engineering Process Outsourcing from India'', released by the union minister of commerce and industry, Kamal Nath, said the size of Indian EPO market, which is currently a little over $3 billion, will grow 10-fold to $30 billion by the year 2015.

The demand for India engineering products has grown at 30-35 per cent from 2004 to 2006.

With the global EPO market poised to grow to $110-140 billion by 2015, India should corner at least $30 billion of the market, the paper said.

EEPC chairman Rakesh Shah said that the engineering exports from the country touched $26 billion in 2006-07.

While he attributed this achievement to the outstanding performance of engineering exporters, Shah also mentioned several areas of concern in the engineering exports.

Nath said while the duty entitlement passbook (DEPB) had been extended till March 2008 the government was working on an alternative duty neutralisation scheme to replace the DEPB scheme, which would lapse next year.

He urged the engineering exporters to use the focus market scheme to their utmost advantage as the potential growth for India''s engineering exports in focus markets especially the Confederation of Independent States (CIS) was huge.

He, however, warned engineering exports of possible non-tariff barriers, considering that average tariffs for industrial products in all countries has been falling.

"This process has already begun for engineering products and is likely to gain greater momentum as India''s share in world exports increases in the coming years," he added.

He said that the Doha Round of Trade Negotiations under the auspices of the WTO is a good opportunity for India and other developing countries to leverage such issues.