The Export Behaviour of Textile, Chemical, Food and Engineering sector firms in context of Gujarat

The state’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) expanded at a CAGR of 15.79% from 2008-09 to 2013- 14. Gujarat’s current erratic level of manufacturing export involvement and performance, coupled with the fact that the phenomenon is extensively researched mainly in the developed economies, a research problem is posed. Gujarat registered an increase of 14.82% in the Per Capita Income for 2013-14, estimated at INR 106,831 at current prices and well above the national average of INR 80,388 for the same year. Gujarat attracted 131 FDI proposals worth USD 3.7 billion over 2011-12 and became the state with the second highest number of FDI proposals. Various growth drivers of Gujarat Economy are; Enabling business environment with greater global participation, Access to technology as a consequence of the IT revolution, Simplification and rationalization of Direct and Indirect Tax structures, well established Financial System & Strong Market Fundamentals, Land of abundant natural resources and diverse climatic conditions. The number of factories in Gujarat have increased from 22, 220 in 2011-12 to 22587 in 2012-13. 41% of total Indian port cargo was handled by Gujarat’s ports (2013-14). Gujarat industrial sector comprises of over 5,75,000 MSME’s providing employment to 36.56 lakh people. In nutshell, if we talk about total export and import of Gujarat there is a enormous opportunities lies beyond horizon. The main research problem this paper seeks to address is: why is the export involvement of manufacturing SMEs from the following sub-sector in Gujarat is erratic: Textiles Machinery, Food & Agro, Based Industries and Chemicals & Chemicals Products. Extant
empirical findings in the field which relate to the problem above are based in a developed context (e.g. North America & Europe). As a result, the understanding of exporting and non-exporting behaviour of SMEs in Gujarat represents a gap in the field. Therefore, this thesis seeks to identify key factors that determine exporting behaviour of various sector of operations’ like Textile, Engineering, Food & Agro based Sector and Chemical & Chemical Product Sector in Gujarat. We have identified various factors affecting export behaviour of these sectors and also checked impact on various types of sectors we have taken for our study. We have used questionnaire method for data collection and in analysis conducted Descriptive & ANOVA test. Findings suggest that all independent variable taken has more impact on textile and chemical and chemical product sector firms compare to engineering and food/agro sector firms.