India became the second exporter of agricultural chemicals (agrochemicals).

According to the latest information published by the World Trade Organization, India is the second largest exporter of agricultural chemicals in the world. Ten years ago, the country was ranked sixth. Industry observers say that this is indeed a significant milestone towards the Make in India trajectory. In the figure below, you can see the five major exporters of agricultural chemical products.

The stellar performance on the export front is largely due to the innovative technical capability of the Indian industry to rapidly introduce post-patent products at competitive prices in the market – domestically and globally. The latest example of this performance is Chlorantraniliprole (CTPR), the world's highest selling insecticide with an estimated annual sales of Rs 13,000 crore. Until last year, India was importing this insecticide. Now many Indian companies have introduced domestic production of this product to the domestic market. This is expected to reduce its imports to India and also make India an exporter. In India's agriculture industry, the trade surplus has widened sharply from Rs 8,030 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 28,908 crore in the last financial year

The United States is the largest buyer of Indian agrochemicals, followed by Brazil and Japan. Indian agrochemical products are currently used in more than 140 countries worldwide. Globally, the agrochemicals market is estimated at $78 billion, of which approximately 75 percent is for off-patent products. India today is rapidly becoming a global hub for the supply of post-patent agrochemicals. In order to boost domestic production and reduce imports, the CCFI has recommended specific measures to the Government of India to prevent the import of ready-made pesticide formulations. Indian companies have made significant investments in recent years in setting up larger and new manufacturing facilities to cater to the domestic and global markets.