A massive rise in oil prices, across-the-board uptick in global prices of industrial commodities, a resurgent agri-sector and a higher share of manufactured goods are the main reasons behind India reaching the government’s annual export target.
India has, for the first time, met the government’s annual export target since 2014. The country crossed the crucial threshold of $400-billion annual merchandise export target.
“India set an ambitious goods export target of $400 billion and achieved it for the first time. I congratulate our farmers, weavers, MSMEs, manufacturers and exporters for this success,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.
The Commerce Department is expected to release further details later in the day, but available data shows that cumulative exports had grown by 45.8 percent in April-February FY22 (2021-22) as compared to the same period of FY20 (2019-20). Total exports stood at $374 billion till February, up from $256.5 billion in 2019-20. Only the last two months had seen an economic downturn, owing to COVID.
After a difficult FY21, marked by lockdowns and restrictions, exports had started rising at the end of the financial year. In the current financial year, they have risen every month till February. All major categories of exports have risen consistently. Moneycontrol takes a deep dive into India’s export sector to see what went right.