Mumbai: The government expects rising shipments to Africa and Europe to more than compensate a slowdown in exports to the US.

India's exports grew 22.9 per cent during last fiscal, despite the appreciation in value of Indian rupee vis-a-vis dollar, minister for labour and employment Oscar Fernandes told the Rajya Sabha.

He said exports are shifting from the US to Africa and Europe, even as the appreciation of the rupee had led to closure of some industries in Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir. H, however, did not quantify the loss to business or jobs.

"The impact of rupee appreciation has been acutely felt by the exporting community, in particular by those sectors which are labour-intensive whose inputs are less import driven and where value addition is low," he said while replying to supplementaries.

The rupee has appreciated by 9.8 per cent against the US dollar during the last financial year.

Currently, India's exports account for just 3.5 per cent of Africa's total import demand and just 0.7 per cent of import demand of Latin America and Carribbean countries, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said in a recent release.

"These shares can easily be doubled with minimum efforts in the next two to three years," CII noted.
 
CII said the export strategy should also focus on fast growing markets - Latin America and the Carribbean and Africa.

Among African states, Nigeria has emerged India's biggest trading partner during the 2006-2007 trading year.

India's exports to Nigeria during the period stood at $901.03 million as against imports of $7.021 billion. India import mainly oil from Nigeria.
 
An analysis of the trading figures released by the department of commerce showed that Nigeria had a trading surplus of about $6 billion during the period in review .

Data also confirmed the West African sub-region has become India's biggest sub-regional trading partner on the continent.

West African states accounted for $10.62 billion out of the $24.96 billion total trade volume generated between India and Africa.

The South African sub-region came second as it recorded a total of $5.73 billion trade with India. Out of this, South Africa led others with exports and imports valued at $4.7 billion.

The North African sub-region came third with a total trade volume of $5.20 billion, with Egypt accounting for $2.9 billion of the total sum. Algeria came second to Egypt, accounting for $1.08 billion.

Both the East and Central African sub-regions came fourth and fifth respectively with $3.17 billion and $231.79 million. Kenya had the biggest trading relationship with India, accounting for $1.36 billion of the total sum.

Overall, Africa accounted for 8.12 per cent and 7.98 per cent of India's global exports and imports respectively.