Services exports touched all-time high at $250 bn in FY22: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said services exports touched an all-time high of around USD 250 billion (about Rs 19 lakh crore) in 2021-22.

The previous highest level was USD 213 billion (about Rs 16 lakh crore) in 2019-20.

"We have achieved the USD 250 billion target despite the fact that sectors like tourism and travel was hit by the COVID pandemic... These are the highest ever services exports," he said at a briefing.

However, this is provisional data and the figure may increase once the final data is released, he added.

Further, Goyal said the services basket is now increasing and "from low cost services, we are moving up the value chain".

When asked about the exports target for the current fiscal for both goods and services, he said officials are already engaging with the stakeholders.

"From Friday, I am starting a round of talks with export promotion councils," he said, adding that the prime minister would also take feedback and then "we will set the target".

However, these are challenging times because of the pandemic and the ongoing conflict, he noted.

On the impact of Russia-Ukraine war, he said India's total trade with these two countries are "very" large.

India's exports to these countries would be in the range of about USD 2.5-3 billion while imports are in the range of about USD 10-11 billion.

"There are few sectors which may get impacted" but increasing engagement with countries like Australia, and the UAE would help in boosting trade," the minister said.

Ukraine is the world's biggest sunflower oil producer and India imports almost all of its sunflower oil from there. Sunflower oil is India's second biggest imported edible oil after palm oil.

Goyal said that India was a major player in this segment and "now again we are discussing with the farmer associations and the states to see how we can boost oil seed production in the country".

India can look for alternative sources of supply to meet any short term disruption in supply, he added.

When asked about rising inflation, Goyal said the food grain situation is comfortable and the likely good monsoon would further increase the supplies.

He said that the whole world has been impacted by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the effort of the government would be to become Aatmanirbhar in more areas.

Regardingn rupee-rouble trade with Russia, Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam said that "no official talks are going on for this".

Instead, the government is trying to facilitate payments for the exports already made to Russia from banks which are not covered by sanctions, he added.