India far behind China in bicycle exports

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 15

Despite being the second-largest market in the world, bicycle exports from India is miniscule as compared to China. Out of nine crore bicycles produced in China every year, six crore are exported across the world. However, India exported only 7.82 lakh bicycles in 2019-20.

Manufacturers are of the view that the imposition of anti-dumping duty by EU and the US on China will be a game changer for the Indian cycle industry.

“The anti-dumping duty on China by the EU and the US has tilted the global markets in favour of India as a lot of volume has now migrated out of China and moved to eastern Europe, southeast Asia and India. In the past two years, China has lost a significant export volume to these countries while India has been able to gain, mostly due to investment in modern plant, machinery and processes,” said Pankaj M Munjal, CMD, HMC, a Hero Motors Company.

He said there has been an exponential hike in exports from India to the EU, the US and Africa owing to improvement in production quality but the industry is still far behind China in terms of exports.

Rs 7,000-crore industry

• India produces around 2.2 crore bicycles per annum. Over 1.5 crore are made in Punjab, especially in Ludhiana
• A majority of the cycles produced are purchased within the country
• The annual turnover of the industry is Rs7,000 crore