India’s merchandise exports reached a historic high in the first quarter of FY22.
Turning adversity into opportunity, India recorded the highest ever merchandise exports of $95 billion in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal (FY22).
This is 85 percent more than the exports of Q1 2020-21 and 18 percent more than the exports of Q1 of 2019-20. This is also 16 per cent higher than the previous highest Q1 exports of 2018-19 ($82 billion) and higher than the earlier peak of exports in Q4 of 2020-21 ($90 billion).
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that sector specific interventions, participation of all stakeholders and functioning of the government helped in achieving the development as a whole.
He said that simplification of procedures and extension of timelines and licenses has resulted in record performance of exports.
The minister also said that looking at the performance in the first quarter of the financial year, an ambitious target of exports of $400 billion has been set for 2021-22.
In the first quarter period, several labor intensive sectors witnessed rapid export growth. Exports in the engineering goods sector grew by $5.2 billion in the first quarter of 2019-20. Similarly, rice export growth has remained positive since May 2020 and increased by 37 per cent in Q1 of 2021-22 as compared to Q1 of 2019-20.
India exhibited stronger export performance in April 2020 than the major economies of the world. Compared to April 2019, India’s export growth during April 2021 was higher than that of other major advanced economies such as EU, Japan, US, South Korea and UK.
The country also received the highest ever FDI inflow of $81.72 billion in 2020-21. This is 10 per cent higher than the $74.39 billion received in 2019-20. The positive momentum continues with FDI inflows of $6.24 billion during April 2021, an increase of 38 per cent over April 2020.
Goyal said that the number of start-ups recognized by DPIIT has crossed 50,000 and these are spread across 623 districts. Around 1.8 lakh formal jobs have been created by over 16,000 recognized start-ups in 2020-21. The startup ecosystem has benefited manifold.
To improve ease of doing business and reduce compliance burden, 6,426 compliances have been reduced in Phase I and 3,177 compliances are being reduced in Phase II. The deadline for the first phase was March 31, 2021 and for the second phase, it is August 15, 2021.
Goyal said that the world sees India as a trusted and reliable partner, and has greater confidence in India’s ability to provide quality products and services on time. He said that with the pick-up of goods and services, employment opportunities will be created in large numbers, the economy will be strengthened, revenue will increase and the government will be able to help the deprived sections in a more concrete way.
He further said that the performance of the services sector has also been excellent, and despite the pandemic, around 97 per cent of the 2019-20 service export level was achieved in the last financial year. He said that after consultations with stakeholders, he is confident that service exports of $350 billion can be achieved by 2025, and may go up to $500 billion very soon.
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