While I think this will do it for you I don't think it is much more clear than doing what you have already done.

package A;
use base qw(Exporter);
our $VERSION = '0.0.1'
our @EXPORT_OK = qw($VERSION);

package B;
use A qw($VERSION);
[download]

Of course you could also have done: our @EXPORT = qw($VERSION);