Exploring India’s Export Opportunities to Surpass China’s Position in the Global Arena in the Pandemic Era : A Policy Based Case Study of the Leather Industry

The coronavirus outbreak has badly hit the global economy, especially China’s position in world exports. As the number one exporter of leather items, China held 32.5% export share of the world, and against it, India held only 2.7% export share of leather items in the world in the year 2020. As the epicenter of this pandemic, China’s position in the global supply chain is harshly hit, and India has absolute advantage in raw material production and some good skin varieties of goat, calf, and sheep, due to which India stands on a competitive position. Henceforth, this is the opportunity for India to take advantage to curb the position of China in the world leather export market. This paper investigated the export prospects for India’s leather industry by finding out potential markets and immediate competitors of India to curb China’s export share in the world. To assess India’s competitiveness with its immediate competitors for the identified potential markets, the revealed comparative advantage analysis was done. The growth analysis observed that being the prime exporter, China’s 5 year CAGR is negative (–1%), and for India, the CAGR is positive (1%), which is a “blessing in disguise” position for India. The countries like Germany, U.K., Italy, France, Spain, and South Korea are identified as potential countries for India. In the RCA analysis, in case of Germany, India was found to be competitive with Italy, France, and Vietnam ; in case of U.K. and Italy, India was found to be competitive with Netherlands ; in case of Spain, India was found to be competitive with Italy, France, and Netherlands ; and in case of France and South Korea, India was found to be non-competitive.