Markets for export

Target unrealistic while govt frowns on trade deals

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday reaffirmed the government’s commitment to an ambitious export target of $1 trillion by 2025. This is an enormous expansion over India’s current achievements in this domain. In the last full financial year, India’s merchandise exports were less than $320 billion, down from over $330 billion in the previous financial year. (Services exports were $214 billion.) In other words, if the government’s target is for merchandise exports alone, then they will have to triple by 2025. However, if the 2025 target of $1 trillion includes services exports, even then merchandise exports will