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India’s goods exports crossed the $400 billion target set for fiscal year 2021-22, nine days ahead of schedule, touching a new peak, propelled by sectors such as engineering goods, electronics, farm products, petroleum products, textiles and chemicals.
Exports in the on-going fiscal, increased 37 per cent over exports worth $292 billion in 2020-21, which was a grim year for exporters as disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic led to a decline in global demand for goods.
“India set an ambitious target of $400 billion of goods exports & achieves this target for the first time ever. I congratulate our farmers, weavers, MSMEs, manufacturers, exporters for this success.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Wednesday morning. This is a key milestone in our ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ journey, he added.
Indian exporters had hit the previous peak of $330 billion of exports in 2018-19 after a long and arduous struggle of five years to surpass the 2013-14 export figures of $314 billion. Exports had dipped again the following two years due to the pandemic, but fiscal 2021-22 has put exports back on a high growth track.
An export target for 2022-23 had not yet been firmed up, said Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal at a press conference on Wednesday.
“Consultations with our Indian missions and export promotion councils have started…,” the Minister said.
Challenges
The on-going Russia-Ukraine war and the rising Covid-19 cases around the world were serious challenges for exports and imports in the current scenario but India was prepared to face them, Goyal said. “The challenges (of Ukraine-Russia war) include rise in commodity prices, inflation, disruption in shipping lines and container shortage. These may all lead to certain kind of disruptions in trade. And these have come along with Covid-19, which is again rearing its head. But we are completely on top of these issues and are in continuous dialogue. We are hand holding exporters on a regular basis,” he said.
Despite the pit-falls, many exporters are optimistic about the future. “...What is more important (than achieving $400 billion target) is to build on it as we will have benefits of new Free Trade Agreements and the PLI Scheme backing us. We will build on such remarkable achievements,” said A Sakthivel, President, FIEO.
Engineering goods secto
The engineering goods sector, which grew 50 per cent in 2021-22 to touch $107 billion, will achieve the goal of higher growth in the new fiscal despite challenges, especially geo-political tensions arising out of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, said Mahesh Desai, Chairperson, EEPC India.
The new five-year Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) will not be announced on April 1 2022, the Minister said, adding that the existing policy would continue for a few more months. This was reported by BusinessLine on March 15. “Since number of events overtaken us…to make the policy more real time, we will probably give it more time. The existing policy will be continued for some more months,” he said.
India achieved exports of $30 billion or more every month in the on-going fiscal, pointed out Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Sarangi at the press conference.
Commodities which achieved more than the export target till March 21 2022, include organic & inorganic chemical, engineering goods, plastic and linoleum, petroleum products, cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups, handloom products, other cereals, mica, coal and other ores.
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