Eastern & North East India · Multi-state
Customs records for traders around North East India — tea and more, clearing through Kolkata. Importer and exporter names, HS codes, quantities, declared values and ports.
Tea anchors the trading base around North East India. Goods move through Kolkata, Haldia; Moreh, Dawki, Sutarkandi land ports; Guwahati air cargo. That combination — what the cluster makes and which gateway it clears — is what a customs record from North East India actually looks like, and it is the fastest way to find counterparties you can visit in a day.
| Detail | |
|---|---|
| Location | North East India |
| Zone | Eastern & North East India |
| Clearance points | Kolkata, Haldia; Moreh, Dawki, Sutarkandi land ports; Guwahati air cargo |
| Trading clusters | tea, spices and horticulture, bamboo and cane, handloom, agarwood |
| HS chapters | 09 — Coffee, tea, mate and spices, 44 — Wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal, 63 — Other made up textile articles; sets; worn c, 08 — Edible fruit and nuts; peel of citrus fruit |
Every cluster below files under a Harmonized System chapter. Open the chapter to see the markets trading it, the partner countries and the multi-year values.
The classification tea from North East India is filed under.
Learn more ›The classification spices and horticulture from North East India is filed under.
Learn more ›The classification bamboo and cane from North East India is filed under.
Learn more ›The classification handloom from North East India is filed under.
Learn more ›The classification agarwood from North East India is filed under.
Learn more ›India’s own reported figures for the chapters this cluster works in. These are national aggregates — the shipment-level detail that identifies a North East India counterparty sits in the customs records themselves.
| HS | Chapter | Exports | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63 | Other made up textile articles; sets; worn… | $5.9B | 2024 |
| 09 | Coffee, tea, mate and spices | $5.2B | 2024 |
| 08 | Edible fruit and nuts; peel of citrus fruit or… | $1.7B | 2024 |
| 44 | Wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal | $577.1M | 2024 |
| 50 | Silk | $153.9M | 2024 |
| HS | Chapter | Imports | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08 | Edible fruit and nuts; peel of citrus fruit or… | $4.5B | 2024 |
| 44 | Wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal | $2.5B | 2024 |
| 09 | Coffee, tea, mate and spices | $1.2B | 2024 |
| 63 | Other made up textile articles; sets; worn… | $606.0M | 2024 |
| 50 | Silk | $175.5M | 2024 |
Source: UN Comtrade, official statistics reported by national authorities. Figures are country-level aggregates, not shipment records.
Eastern India’s trade is shaped by two things: bulk commodities moving through the mineral ports, and land borders. Steel, ore and coal dominate the tonnage, while the land ports on the Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh frontiers carry a very different kind of trade — smaller, more frequent consignments, often in transit rather than in final import. Reading eastern records without separating the two produces averages that describe neither.
For North East India specifically, the clearance points are Kolkata, Haldia; Moreh, Dawki, Sutarkandi land ports; Guwahati air cargo. In practice that means a consignment normally starts as a mineral or river port, or a land border crossing, and the first entry on that list — Kolkata — is where most of the volume is filed. When you are reading a record and trying to work out whether a counterparty is genuinely based here, the clearance point is the strongest single clue you have, because a company files where it is convenient to file and convenience is geographic.
| What to read | What it tells you about a North East India counterparty |
|---|---|
| Clearance point | Whether the party is actually operating out of the North East India area or filing here for another reason |
| Linked gateway | Which coastal port the consignment eventually sails from, and therefore which ocean lanes are available to it |
| HS chapter | Which of the North East India clusters the company belongs to — tea and spices and horticulture look nothing alike in the tariff |
| Consignment size | Whether you are looking at a manufacturer shipping production or a trader consolidating |
| Frequency | An operating business files regularly; a one-off filing is not a trading history |
| Counterparty country | The markets this cluster already serves, which is the fastest read on where its competitive advantage lies |
North East India’s trading base is not one industry, it is a set of them: tea, spices and horticulture, bamboo and cane, handloom, agarwood. Each of those has its own tariff home, its own buying calendar and its own idea of what a normal consignment looks like. Treating them as one market is the most common mistake made when reading a location’s trade, because an average taken across unrelated chapters describes nothing that exists.
Concretely: tea files under chapter 09 (coffee, tea, mate and spices); spices and horticulture files under chapter 44 (wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal); bamboo and cane files under chapter 63 (other made up textile articles; sets; worn clothing;); handloom files under chapter 08 (edible fruit and nuts; peel of citrus fruit or melon); agarwood files under chapter 50 (silk). Open any of those chapters and you get the markets trading it worldwide, which is the demand side of the same question.
An exporter here has a straightforward question to answer: who buys tea, in what volume, and at what price. The import record of every destination market answers it directly. Rather than researching a market and then hoping the demand exists, you start from the demand and work backwards to the markets that have it — which is both faster and considerably harder to be wrong about.
The reverse question is just as tractable. An importer near North East India looking for a supplier reads the export side of the same chapters: which countries ship the input, which named exporters ship it consistently, and what the declared unit values look like across them. Consistency across several years and several destinations is the strongest signal a customs record carries, and it is not something a supplier can manufacture retrospectively.
The value tables on this page are India's national figures for the chapters the North East India clusters work in. Customs aggregates published to the UN are national by construction, so no honest source attributes them to a city. The location detail — which company, which depot, which consignment — lives in the shipment records themselves, not in the aggregates.
The checks below take a few minutes each and remove most of the ways a first transaction goes wrong. None of them require anything the other party has to provide, which is precisely why they are worth doing before the conversation rather than during it.
| Check | How to do it | What a bad answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Do they actually ship? | Search the company name across both flows | No filings, or filings that stop a year ago |
| Do they ship this? | Filter their record to the HS line you care about | The product is a small fraction of an unrelated mix |
| At your scale? | Compare their typical consignment size to your order | Your order is several times anything they have shipped |
| To markets like yours? | Read their destination or origin spread | One destination only, with no comparable regulatory regime |
| Consistently? | Look for unbroken activity across recent periods | Long gaps that nobody can explain |
| At a sane price? | Check declared unit values against the band | Far outside the band in either direction |
It is worth being explicit about the limits. A customs record shows goods that crossed a border. It does not show domestic trade, it does not show services, it does not show margin or contract terms, and it does not show intent. A company that sells almost everything domestically will look small in the trade record and be large in reality. Where a cluster’s output is consumed inside India, the export record measures the surplus, not the industry.
It also lags. Customs authorities compile and publish on their own cycle, so the most recent period is always incomplete and will fill in after you look at it. Reading that incompleteness as a decline is the most common false conclusion drawn from trade data anywhere, and it is worth guarding against explicitly when you are assessing whether a particular counterparty is still active.
Method
A national total tells you the market exists. A location view tells you who to call.
Filter to the clearance points serving North East India (Kolkata first) to isolate consignments that actually moved through here.
Add the HS code for the product you trade. Location plus classification is a far tighter filter than either alone.
A counterparty that clears the same product monthly is an operating business. One shipment is not a trading history.
The origin and discharge ports tell you the lane, the lead time and most of the freight cost before anyone quotes you.
Indian importers clearing your product through the gateways that serve North East India, ranked by volume.
Overseas importers of what North East India makes, so an exporter here can approach demand that already exists.
Confirm a company's shipping history before you extend credit or wire a deposit against a proforma.
Declared unit values on comparable consignments, so a quote can be argued from evidence.
Track a named North East India shipper's consignments — products, destinations, volumes and how they change.
See which of North East India's clearance points carries the volume for your category, and what that does to transit time.
Eastern & North East India
It is the customs record of consignments cleared by traders based in North East India — the declaration behind each shipment, carrying the importer or exporter, the HS code, the product description, quantity, declared value and the port the goods moved through. For North East India that clearance normally happens at Kolkata.
Consignments to and from North East India clear through Kolkata, Haldia; Moreh, Dawki, Sutarkandi land ports; Guwahati air cargo. Knowing which gateway a counterparty uses matters, because the port pair on a record is what lets you compare two suppliers on landed cost rather than on ex-works price.
The trading base around North East India is concentrated in tea, spices and horticulture, bamboo and cane, handloom, agarwood. Each of those maps onto an HS chapter, which is how you move from the industry to the actual shipment record.
Filter Indian customs records by HS code and then by the clearance point serving North East India. That returns the companies actually shipping the product, with their volumes and declared values, rather than a list of businesses that registered themselves.
The clusters here file under chapters 09, 44, 63, 08, 50. Each chapter page carries the markets trading it worldwide, the partner countries and multi-year values, which is the demand side of what North East India produces.
Search the company across both flows and look for four things: unbroken recent activity, consignment sizes consistent with your order, a destination or origin spread that matches the markets you care about, and declared unit values inside a sane band. A company that fails any of those is worth a conversation before a commitment.
No. A customs record exists because goods crossed a border. Companies that sell mainly within India will look small in the trade record and can be large in reality, so treat the record as a view of cross-border activity rather than as a view of the whole business.
Indian customs data is refreshed on the authority's own release cycle, normally monthly. The most recent one or two periods are always still filling in, so exclude them when you are reading a trend rather than treating the gap as a decline.
Indian declarations carry the port of clearance and the declared address of the party, so shipments can be read by location. The aggregate statistics published to the UN are national, so the figures shown on this page are India-level and labelled as such; the location detail lives in the shipment records themselves.
Tell us the HS code you trade and we will pull sample customs records covering the gateways that serve North East India — no call required.