The Commerce & Industry Ministry plans to rope in the country’s various embassies and consulates overseas to contribute towards reaching overall export targets— tentatively fixed at $ 400 billion in the current fiscal and $1 trillion over next five-six years-- by giving them individual sub-targets to meet based on assessed potential.

“The idea is to fix an export target for the foreign missions so that each has a goal to pursue. A detailed exercise has been carried out by the Commerce Ministry analysing the market shares and trends in the last five years and the potential opportunities for increasing exports. Based on the analysis, export targets are being disaggregated product wise, country wise and region wise,” an official familiar with the development told BusinessLine .

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been doing its bit in helping exporters find larger markets through its missions and posts but fixing a goal would help channelise their efforts in a particular direction, the official said.

The MEA’s economic diplomacy division has a budget for ‘market expansion activities’ which includes handling of routine trade and investment enquiries, providing information on economic and business climate, and identifying new business opportunities by undertaking promotional activities such as market surveys, seminars, workshops and outreach activities.

“There is a need for coordination with the commercial wings of our embassies and consulates so that they know exactly where to put in efforts to get the maximum benefits and reach their given targets. The Commerce and Industry Ministry can certainly help them be more focussed and goal-oriented,” the official said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, highlighted the important role of Indian missions could play in accelerating exports, in a recent virtual interaction with the Heads of various embassies and consulates. He asked all missions to add 75 new products in addition to the products already being exported to those countries

The US, China, UAE, Hong Kong and Bangladesh were the top five markets for India in 2020-21 while petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, pearls, precious & semi-precious stones and electric machinery & equipment were the top export items

“The Commerce & Industry Ministry, in collaboration with the MEA, hopes to soon have all foreign missions on board with their individual export targets and plans of how to meet them,” the official said.

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