Advantages and challenges of exporting to India

There are both advantages and potential challenges for Northern Ireland companies doing business in India.

India is a price-competitive market, and price is an important consideration for consumers. You will be expected to negotiate the price of your goods and offer discounts.

Advantages of exporting to India

India can offer numerous benefits to companies looking to do business in the region, including:

• The UK-India Free Trade Agreement will strengthen Northern Ireland’s economy by enhancing its trading relationship with India across multiple sectors. Find out more about the benefits of the UK-India free trade agreement.
• English is widely spoken
• a common legal and administrative history
• rising personal incomes, creating a new middle-class consumer market
• a fast-growing economy with one of the world’s largest youth populations
• expanding emerging cities with more than 50 cities now with over a million people

Challenges of exporting to India

You should also be aware of some challenges you could face when exporting to India. It is a large market to do business in, which can lead to some unique challenges, including:

• multiple religious, ethnic and annual variations in holiday timings, requiring careful planning for business trips
• barriers to trade and investment in some sectors because of regulatory constraints, local sourcing requirements and import tariffs
• intellectual property protection (IP)
• risk of delays due to administrative requirements
• difficulty of land acquisition
• access to the right skills in the local workforce
• infrastructure challenges, including for distribution and logistics
• extremely hot weather in summer and wet weather in the monsoon season can affect business
• risk of bribery and corruption