NITI Aayog wants India’s chemicals industry to hit exports of up to $81 billion by 2030, requiring sharp growth in output.

The government think tank’s report breaks the target down by segment. Speciality chemicals could account for $45 billion of that figure, inorganic chemicals for $5 billion to $10 billion, and petrochemicals for another $26 billion.

To get there, the report says chemical consumption in India needs to grow at 10% to 11% a year, while production needs to expand even faster, at around 14% annually.

The numbers behind this are big. India’s chemicals market is expected to grow to somewhere between $290 billion and $310 billion by 2030, up from current levels, and that would make India responsible for roughly 5% to 6% of global chemical consumption.

India already holds a decent position in some parts of this market. It’s a net exporter of agrochemicals and colourants, and these categories make up close to 59% of the country’s speciality chemicals industry.

But the picture isn’t the same everywhere. India runs a trade deficit in inorganic chemicals and petrochemicals, largely because it doesn’t have enough domestic feedstock and raw materials to work with.

The report points to a few specific problems holding the industry back. Feedstock is often used to make bulk, low-value chemicals instead of higher-value derivatives like ethylbenzene or cyclohexane.

Infrastructure gaps, slow environmental clearances and a shortage of skilled workers add to the strain.

NITI Aayog has floated ideas to fix this, including viability gap funding for downstream manufacturing and stronger incentives for producing complex, higher-value chemicals.

Globally, India currently holds around an 8% share of the specialty chemicals export market, well behind China, the US and Germany.

NITI Aayog sees this as room to grow rather than a weakness, pointing to India’s cost advantages and the broader shift of manufacturing away from China as factors that could work in the country’s favour over the next few years.

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