India: emerging in Specialty Chemicals

India has slowly becoming a significant player in the international chemicals market. As India's edge in speciality chemicals is more and more visible, it is not just multinationals that are ramping up their sourcing plans from India; even home-grown firms are creating new capacity, increasing productivity and going in for acquisitions. MNC’s like BASF, Clariant, Lanxess, Chemtura etc are already invested significant amount and in the process of investing additional capital to expand their business.

India is expected to drive growth in the $650 billion global speciality chemicals market. India's speciality chemicals industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15% - almost double the growth of the global industry. Exports of speciality chemicals from India are poised to grow from $4 billion in 2007 to $13 billion in 2013, representing a CAGR of 22%.

The largest exporter of chemicals in the world is still Europe with $955 billion The EU still accounts for 90% of total chemical exports. They are the world leaders not just in production, but also the largest exporters. The second largest is the USA with $180 billion. India exported just $24 billion which is quite insignificant at this moment.

India has improved from its export figure of $22 billion two years ago, but China had clocked chemical exports worth $88 billion. Japan had $78 billion worth of exports. Though India's growth is good as compared to the past, even fantastic, it is rather small if one compares to China.