New Delhi: Despite global headwinds, India’s goods and services exports may touch $750 billion in the year to March 31, surpassing record exports in 2021-22, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said, emphasising the government’s focus on promoting overseas trade through Indian diplomatic missions.
“Last year was, of course, a record. We crossed $650 billion (of exports) in goods and services. This year, we aim for an even bigger record,” the minister said on Saturday while speaking at the Raisina Dialogue 2023. India’s exports in 2021-22 was $676 billion.
Expressing confidence in India’s robust export performance in 2022-23 despite global headwinds, Goyal said: “First of all, figures available up to 28th of February give me that confidence. We, of course, crossed last year’s figure already… and we are well on track… We will be hopefully crossing $750 billion,” he said.
The target of $750 billion in exports was possible with proper planning, the trade minister said. “It was an effort to a plan. It was not that it happened on its own. Again, very deep dive analysis was done on our strength areas — the markets where we could look at for expanding our exports, the products. Huge efforts to involve states and people and businesses at the district level,” he said.
“This whole exercise started under Prime Minister’s guidance about three years ago and a lot of painstaking work went behind setting targets, getting all our 180-odd missions on board,” he said. “So, today our missions, finally, after years and years of demand by Indian industry, our missions abroad are engaged with trade, with technology and tourism.”
“When I was in the private sector, we used to be so jealous of the other foreign businesspersons, whose ambassadors and missions were merrily and happily supporting their industry through their trials and tribulations of problems, whereas Indian missions thought that it was not their job. (They were) scared to even hold the hand or help anybody. We changed that. We now got the missions involved in this entire exercise. And I must complement Prime Minister for his vision on this respect,” he said, also lauding foreign minister S Jaishankar’s leadership.
Exports worth $750 billion in 2022-23 would be a major achievement as India’s outbound goods shipments contracted for the second consecutive month in January. It fell by 6.6% on an annualised basis to $32.91 billion. Services exports, however, jumped by about 49% to $32.24 billion.
India’s overall exports between April last year and January is estimated to show a positive growth of 17.33% over the same period in the preceding financial year, according to a commerce ministry’s statement released on February 15. In April 2022-January 2023, total goods and services exports crossed $641 billion, official data show.
Source- Hindustan Times.
