India’s merchandise, services exports to cross $825 billion despite global challenges: Piyush Goyal

Expressing optimism over India’s exports growth, the Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the country's merchandise and services exports will cross $825 billion despite global challenges. Last year, the exports were $778 billion. He also said that there are plans to open offices in different countries including Singapore, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, possibly one in New York, Silicon Valley, and one in Zurich as part of the Indian government's outreach programme to handhold foreign investors. He said the plan is that through these offices, a person sitting anywhere in the world can buy land in India, can see that piece of land, take all approvals through a single window platform and resolve issues, if any, through video conference. He added it would make it easy to invest in India and do business in India. 

On exports, he said that the current geo-political situation affects everything including trade, economy, interest rates, stock market, and shipping routes. He informed that the commerce ministry is holding a meeting with the shipping industry to look at issues like container shortages, skyrocketing freight rates and how to reduce the impact of the Red Sea crisis. These issues are hurting Indian exporters and importers. According to the government data, India's exports registered a steepest decline in 13-month falling 9.3% in August to $34.71 billion due to global economic uncertainties, while the trade deficit soared to a 10-month of $29.65 billion. Imports increased by 3.3% to $64.36 billion, which is a record high, due to a significant jump in the inbound shipments of gold and silver.

He also said that to attract investments and boost domestic manufacturing, he is meeting countries like Japan, Singapore and Switzerland to set up units in Indian industrial townships. The cabinet has recently approved 12 such townships in states like Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Besides, four have already been developed and work is undergoing in four other industrial cities. India is developing modern infrastructure, common effluent facilities, and providing utilities like water, power, digital connectivity in these townships. He further said that the countries are recognising that when India is buying oil from Russia due to sanctions on countries like Iran, and Venezuela, it is helping stabilise the world market. He also said that the commerce and industry ministry is looking at ways to promote trade and investments through national investment promotion agency Invest India.