India’s engineering goods exports to Bangladesh slipped 9% in the first four months of the year, with the recent unrest in the country disrupting supply chains and raising the spectre of likely revenue losses and heightened uncertainty for an industry that accounts for a quarter of India’s merchandise exports.

While overall engineering goods exports had risen 4.2% to almost $37 billion between April and July, fractionally faster than total exports, data from industry body EEPC India shows that growth was dented by a sharp 31.6% dip in exports of iron and steel.

Moreover, as many as 13 of the sector’s top 25 export markets showed lower appetite for Indian goods so far in 2024-25, including big buyers like Italy (-26.4%), Korea (-16.6%), Nepal (-12.3%) and Bangladesh. This had been offset to an extent by an almost 44% spike in exports to UAE and and a 33% jump in shipments to Saudi Arabia, which together had imported $4.4 billion of engineering goods so far this year, next only to the $6.1 billion of exports to the U.S.A., reflecting a 7.2% rise over the same period in 2023-24.

On the decline in exports to Bangladesh, EEPC noted that the violence and protests in the country had significantly disrupted imports, causing substantial losses for exporters across the world, including those from India.