India’s exports touch record US $ 125 billion mark, 2007-08 target set at US$ 160 billion

Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, today unveiled the Annual Supplement 2007 to the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-09 with a slew of major initiatives to impart further momentum to India’s exports which have touched a record figure of US $ 125 billion (US $ 124.65 billion rounded off) during 2006-07.

Announcing the Annual Supplement at a press conference here, the Minister said that India’s merchandise exports had almost doubled in three years - from US $ 63.84 billion in 2004 to US $ 125 billion, representing an annual compounded growth of 25% compared to 12.73% in the previous three years. During this period, India’s share of world trade had also moved from 0.76% to more than 1%, with incremental exports in the last three years creating 75 lakh additional jobs.

In this background, the Minister announced a merchandise export target of US $ 160 billion for this fiscal (2007-08) and US $ 200 billion for 2008-09. "This upward revision in our goal - up from US $ 150 billion envisaged earlier - should not be difficult to attain, given our strong economic fundamentals, the entrepreneurship of our exporting community and the collective resolve of government and trade & industry", Shri Kamal Nath said.

Stating that a liberal export policy had a direct effect on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and that the two were closely inter-linked, Shri Kamal Nath announced that FDI (equity) inflows had gone up to almost US $ 16 billion from US $ 5.5 billion in the previous year. The last three years had seen a staggering 725% increase in FDI inflows up from US $ 2.22 billion in 2003-04 to US $ 16 billion in 2006-07, he said, adding that the directional flow of FDI into manufacturing and export of goods and services was contributing immensely to the country’s export efforts.

Announcing a series of measures to boost exports of agricultural products from India, Shri Kamal Nath said that the scope of Vishesh Krishi and Gram Udyog Yojana (VKGUY) was being expanded, to include exports of value-added variants of several agricultural and forest products including coconut oil, soyabean oil, potato flakes, meals & flours, cardamom, food preparations like soups, sauces, artistic wooden furniture, herbal extracts of forest products, malt and minor forest produce, etc.

Source : Press Information Bureau

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