Time to harvest the tailwind in exports

The current high tide in global trade offers an opportunity for India to get its exports strategy in order before growth dips again

India’s merchandise exports have sailed through the pandemic after rebounding to its pre-pandemic levels in calendar 2020 itself.

The big upsurge was useful in propping up gross domestic product (GDP) growth at a time when private consumption was dealt an extraordinary shock, and private investments remained in limbo.

In this fiscal, too, merchandise exports have sprinted 55 per cent year-on-year in the first seven months (April-October), and a good 26 per cent over the corresponding period in fiscal 2020, or the pre-pandemic level.

Revving global growth, inventory restocking in early 2021 as economies opened, and a pandemic-induced shift towards consumption of goods —