Export Performance of Uttar Pradesh among Major Indian States: Growth, Share and Instability

Background: Uttar Pradesh is among India's largest merchandise-exporting states, but evidence comparing its export growth and instability with those of other major exporting states remains limited. Aims: To examine the merchandise export performance of Uttar Pradesh relative to India and the ten largest exporting states, focusing on growth, its share in India's exports, trend-adjusted export instability and the concentration of India's exports across states. Study Design: A descriptive comparative study of official state-wise export values in US dollars. Place and Duration of Study: Uttar Pradesh and the ten largest exporting Indian states, 2014-15 to 2023-24; 2024-25 is reported separately as a sensitivity year. Methodology: Growth was measured using compound and semi-log rates. The study also measured the state's share in India's exports, trend-adjusted instability with the Cuddy-Della Valle index, and concentration across states with the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. Results: Uttar Pradesh's exports grew by 4.4% a year compared with 3.9% for India, and its share rose from 4.5% to 4.7%. However, this advantage arose before 2019-20; from 2019-20 to 2023-24 India grew faster (8.7% a year against 4.9%). With 2014-15 as the starting year, its growth ranks sixth among the ten largest exporting states, and comparisons with closely ranked peers depend on the starting year. Its trend-adjusted instability index of 8.2% is below India's 11.4% and is the second lowest among the ten largest states. This ranking holds for deviations from a log-linear trend but not for the raw coefficient of variation. India's export concentration across states fell until 2020-21 and then rose alongside Gujarat's expansion. Conclusion: Uttar Pradesh's exports grew steadily and with lower trend-adjusted instability than India's, but the state's place in India's export map barely changed. State data for 2024-25 appear to have been affected by a change in attribution and are reported separately as a sensitivity check. The findings are descriptive and do not identify causes.