Outbreak of coronavirus in China may have negatively impacted many sectors in the country, but India’s ceramic industry, especially Morbi-based ceramic cluster situated in Gujarat, is set to gain in coming days. Due to coronavirus scare, most of the ceramic factories in China have been shut. In fact, many Chinese ceramic makers slowed down production in wake of Lunar New Year holidays from mid January. These holidays were extended due to outbreak of coronavirus.

China is the biggest exporter of ceramic products, especially vitrified floor tiles in Europe, the US, far-eastern countries and Africa. According to tiles makers in Gujarat, as supply from neighbouring country has stopped, China-dominated markets are now looking at Indian tile manufacturers.

“We are expecting a 10% increase in exports from Morbi as result of current crisis in China. Some of the tile makers have already started exporting to Europe and African countries,” said Nilesh Jetpariya, president of Morbi Ceramic Association.

If the coronavirus effect remains for longer period of time, definitely Indian ceramic exporters would be able to export their products in some of the markets where Indian ceramics are exported negligibly, said Jetpariya, adding that at the same time, Indian ceramic units may face shortage of important chemicals which are being imported from China.

“Generally ceramic factories have couple of months of inventories of these important chemicals being used for coating in vitrified tile manufacturing. If we don’t get chemicals from China, ceramic units will have to import from Spain which would be costlier,” said Dinesh Sadsania, a leading exporter of Ceramic products from Morbi.

Approximately 1,000 ceramic units are functioning in Morbi cluster and provide employment to more than four lakh people. Against the annual turnover of Rs 45,000 crore, exports from Morbi cluster is nearly Rs 12,000 crore. By the end of 2019 the cluster witnessed more than 55,000 cubic meter production of tiles per day.

Though ceramic products are exported to over 170 countries, around 40% is exported to Gulf countries only. In the current scenario, Morbi based exporters are looking at unexplored market where predominantly China has lion’s share.