PM Modi's Neighbourhood First policy: South Asia leads in Indian high-tech products

The ‘ Neighbourhood First’ policy of Narendra Modi is paying in for engineering exports with South Asia emerging as the number one destination of Indian high-tech products clocking in close to $1 billion in April, 2015, according to an EEPC India paper.

As against a miniscule uptick of 0.23% in overall engineering exports in April this year, the shipments South Asia leapfrogged by over 90% to $892 million for the month over $465 million a year ago.

"Significantly, South Asian countries which used to account for modest share of Indian engineering exports have become a major market for us giving us more than 15% of the total shipments," said Anupam Shah, chairman of the EEPC India.

Total engineering exports in April were $5.7 billion showing a small growth , facing a major slowdown in several key markets of Europe like Germany, Italy , Italy, UK and France.

"When Europe and several other parts of the world are posing challenges, finding a handsome growth in the neighborhood was a pleasant surprise. The development gels very well with the policies of the government to give top priority to our neighbours in the foreign policy", Shah said.