India’s goods exports may touch $400 billion in 2021-22 going by the export performance in FY21 and in April 2021, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said. A “large potential’’ exists in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, engineering and agro products.

“He (the Minister) said that performance of exports in April’21 and 2020-21 gives a hope that an ambitious target of $400 billion merchandise exports can be achieved this year. There is a large potential for enhancing exports in several sectors like pharmaceuticals, engineering, auto-component, fisheries and agro-products,” per an official release of the Commerce & Industry Ministry.

The Minister, on Tuesday, held a meeting with several Export Promotion Councils to discuss various issues concerning international trade and assured them that their concerns were being looked at, per an official release. Senior officials from the Ministry and the Director General of Foreign Trade were also present at the meeting.

The Department of Commerce has taken up several areas of concern for exporters with the Ministry of Finance for their early resolution, such as the pending implementation of the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) scheme and the existing inverted duty structure, Goyal assured exporters.

India’s exports, during April-March 2020-21, declined by 7.4 per cent to $290.18 billion compared to $313.36 billion in 2019-20, as exports had fallen steeply in the initial months of the fiscal due to the Covid-19 lockdown and halt in manufacturing activities.

Goyal took note of the encouraging performance of exporters even when the world was reeling under the Covid-19 crisis.

He pointed out that India’s goods exports in April 2021 were $30.21 billion, an increase of 197.03 per cent over $10.17 billion in April 2020 and an increase of 16.03 per cent over $26.04 billion in April 2019. The value of exports in the first week of May 2021 was also up by almost 9 per cent over the same period of 2019-20 ($6.48 billion).

“He (Goyal) said that exports excluding POL (petroleum, oil, lubricants), are even better, and have increased in this period by 15 per cent over same period of 2019-20,” the statement said.

Goyal said the participants should approach the Covid helpdesk of the Department for resolving problems emanating due to Covid-related measures. He assured exporters that the Department of Commerce had taken up several issues of exporters with the Ministry of Finance for their early resolution, like RoDTEP, MEIS and inverted duty structure.

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