Indian economy to get boost with rise in exports, improvement in CAD, and focus on manufacturing: Goyal

01 Jul 2024 Evaluate

Expressing optimism over India’s growth, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that healthy increase in the country's exports, improvement in the current account deficit (CAD) and focus on expanding manufacturing will help the Indian economy register a healthy growth rate. He expressed confidence that the country's goods and services exports would cross $800 billion this fiscal. It was $778 billion in 2023-24 and $776 billion in 2022-23.

He said that the mood amongst industry and exporters is 'wonderful' and a 'very great' sense of confidence is there among the investors about the India growth story. He noted ‘I think this year we will end with over $800 billion exports...We also focus a lot on expanding our manufacturing capacities, so that our import dependencies can come down and CAD is also showing healthy improvement in the last few months. We are very confident that the Indian economy is poised for both healthy and organised growth and providing opportunities to lakhs of people across India’.

About bringing an amendment bill on special economic zones (SEZs), the minister said that several suggestions are on the table and are under consideration. India recorded a current account surplus of $5.7 billion or 0.6 per cent of GDP in the March quarter. This is the first time in ten quarters that the crucial metric of the country's external strength has turned into surplus mode. In the year-ago period, the current account deficit stood at $1.3 billion or 0.2 per cent of GDP, and the same was $8.7 billion or 1 per cent of GDP in the preceding quarter ending December 2023.