Suresh Prabhu says 40% of country's GDP to come from exports by 2025

The Modi government will soon come out with a comprehensive strategy to increase the share of global trade to 40 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is expected to touch $5 trillion by 2025, commerce minister Suresh Prabhu said on Monday.

At present, exports constitute only around 18 per cent of the $2.6-trillion GDP, which is currently the fifth largest in the world after the US, China, Japan, Germany and Britain, while the country's share in global trade is paltry and is under 2 per cent only.

The more than doubling of shipments will demand that the economy massively increase the share of manufacturing in the overall GDP basket, which is around 14 per cent. Though the previous Congress government had set a target of taking this to 25 per cent of GDP by 2020 has come a cropper and same is the fate under the present regime.

Addressing the Maharashtra global investor summit, Prabhu said, "exports is the driving force of our growth strategy. We are coming out with a comprehensive strategy to increase the share of global trade to 40 per cent of GDP, which is likely to touch $5 trillion."

Of the $5-trillion GDP expected to be achieved by 2025, he expects $3 trillion to come from the services sector, while $1 trillion each to come from the manufacturing and agriculture sectors.

The minister also urged the business community to come up with a proper business plan to increase exports.

According to the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (Fieo), the current share of exports in GDP is only 18-19 per cent.

"We are in the process of preparing a new strategy for diversifying our export basket to ensure that we export to new markets and ship out new products. For that, we are preparing a marketing strategy," the minister said, adding the focus would be on attracting foreign investment and engaging the global community.

Prabhu informed that government has called a meeting of all state ministers to discuss on the export strategy. Currently, just four states-Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka contribute almost 70 per cent of exports.

"We have decided to support the states to increase their exports. Participation of all the states is very critical to achieve the target," he said.

Prabhu lauded Maharashtra's efforts to become one trillion-dollar economy by 2025, and said "Maharashtra as an industry leader can play bigger role."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi while inaugurating the summit last evening had said Maharashtra would become the country's first trillion-dollar economy, by 2025.

The state has been the largest weighting in the GDP for long at around 16 per cent of the national GDP.