In the latest report of Export Preparedness Index 2021’s second edition, Gujarat has topped. After Gujarat, it was Maharashtra and Karnataka. Gujarat came on top for the second time. This shows how potentially prepared Gujarat is in terms of exporting and maintaining the performance as well. Gujrat is also known as a subnational export promotion spot where most of the exportation process is done. According to the reports, Gujarat is not just good at exporting the goods and products but is also prepared to manage if there is an emergency in the market as well.

Things to Look At

• The report which was given by NITI Aayog is a complete analysis on the basis of export achievements of India. This index will be useful to show the as the benchmark for many states and union territories.
• Now with the help of this index, many states will challenge their potential to deliver more and help in developing better policies.
• Now subnational export promotion will be easy for the nation as the EPI have ranked states and union territories as 4 Pillars i.e. Export performance, business ecosystem, policy and export ecosystem.
• The Eleven Sub-pillars who was in the ranking of EPI are Export Promotion policy, Business Environment, Transport Connectivity, Export Infrastructure, R&D Infrastructure, growth orientation, Institutional Framework, Infrastructure, Access to Finance, Trade support and Export Diversification.
• During the release of the Export Preparedness Index of 2021, the vice-chairman of NITI Aayog Dr Rajiv Kumar said that this EPI report will help the union territories and states in the plan which will be long lasting and it will help in executing the export-oriented policies so that there will be the maximum amount of utilization as per the export potential.
• This EPI is the subnational export promotion competition advertisement that will run a fair contest between the states and the union territories.
• B.V.R Subrahmanyam who is the Department of commerce secretary said there is a continuous need of strengthening the ecosystem and manufacturing state/union territories level which will surely boost the export.

What were the Pillars All About?

There 4 Pillars here mean that the concerns are getting taken care of:-

• Policy:  Here a complete trade policy will help in making the strategic direction and decision for importing exporting activities.
• Business Ecosystem: Better the business economy, better the progress means there will be more investments and infrastructure to grow.
• Export Ecosystem: This is an important section for subnational export promotion where the aim is to analyze the business environment.
• Export Performance: This pillar calculates and examines the footprints of exports which are done by states and UTs.

Now there are Eleven Sub-pillars which were also taken into consideration:

• Export Promotion Policy
• Institutional Framework
• Business Environment
• Infrastructure
• Transport Connectivity
• Access to the Finance
• Export Infrastructure
• Trade Support
• R&D Infrastructure
• Growth and orientation
• Export Diversification

Here the strategies were based on the evidence and learning as per stated condition. The evidence says that there are challenges that many states face in the subnational export promotion process. Also, there are states who failed to address the inter- and intra-regional exports and later on, it turns out to be poor trade support.

The purpose is simply here to promote the competitive importance between the states that’s why this EPI is getting considered as a scoreboard.  Also, this will be a good way to analyze where they are lacking.

Conclusion

The first thing to highlight in subnational export promotion is that thinking here is completely beneficial and it has paid off to the Gujarat state making them top in the Index for the past 2 years. And the next thing is many union territories and states are working in a competitive manner. This is why this EPI is considered a scoreboard for them. Now they will try to cope with their working style and will put more effort into their potential.