Government Planning For Goods, Services Exports From India To Touch $1 Trillion Each: Piyush Goyal

Piyush Goyal, India's Commerce and Industry Minister, has said that he wants both goods and services exports to reach $1 trillion each. Additionally, the Union Minister said that the centre is currently working on a detailed plan to achieve these goals, and that would be announced soon.

The Commerce Minister, on 3 October, while addressing non-resident Indians (NRIs) and chartered accountants, said that last year’s services exports totalled $194 billion and products exports totalled $290 billion.

Later, he said: “We would like both services and goods exports to compete with each other and together reach the $2 trillion mark. The gap is narrowing between both, thanks to the fact that the government is not involved in services exports.”

Goyal went on to say that the government plans to quadruple textile exports from $33 billion to at least $100 billion by focusing on newer, as well as emerging fields such as man-made fibre and technology textiles and in 2021, the target for textile exports is $44 billion.

“We have focussed too much on cotton and cotton-based textiles. However, at present around two-thirds of international trade is man-made fibre and technical textile where we have a low share. This was never promoted in India, but now all efforts will be to diversify India's textile portfolio in international trade,” the Minister added.

However, in his first abroad travel since the Covid-19 pandemic, Goyal has been in Dubai since last week for the Dubai Expo 2020. He met UAE government ministers, officials, leading industrialists and CEOs, as well as the NRI community, during his visit. He invited Indians and NRIs to invest in early-stage start-ups, where only foreign investors are currently interested— seed funding is tough to come by for early-stage start-ups.

The Minister explained that foreigners are buying such stakes because they know that even if only one or two of the hundred do well, they would still profit. While taking the example of e-commerce giant Flipkart, Goyal said that it sold stakes when the company’s valuation was less than $1 billion and is currently valued at $36 billion.

According to him: “Such a venture capital fund by Indians or NRIs focussed on early-stage investment will encourage several youngsters even if the fund does not earn money.”

The Minister also asked NRIs to engage and persuade the global business community to join in the government's production-linked incentive packages. He stated that the government would shortly issue a comprehensive PLI policy for semiconductors.

Recently Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, said his ministry is trying diligently to realise the goal of establishing a semiconductor fabrication unit (fab) in India, which he expects to happen in the next three to five years. His comments come after reports revealed that India and Taiwan officials have been negotiating a deal that would bring a chip facility worth $7.5 billion to India, which would lead to the supply of everything, including 5G devices and electric cars.

However, at the Dubai Expo, Goyal also said: "From launching world’s most cost-effective space mission to producing world’s first DNA-based vaccine, India is voicing its capabilities to the world."

"Riding high on reforms across all sectors, India is emerging as a global economic hub," he added.