Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal said that the export figure for last year had already been crossed in February and expressed confidence that merchandise and services exports would touch USD 750 billion this year. He was addressing the 8th edition of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi.
Responding to a question on India achieving the highest export figure in the past year, the Minister said that it was the result of a deep-dive analysis and extensive planning where India’s capabilities were thoroughly assessed, new markets were sought out, districts, especially remote ones were empowered to become export hubs and all Indian Missions abroad were effectively leveraged to promote trade, technology and tourism. The Minister noted that last year, merchandise and service trade had crossed USD 650 billion.
The Minister stressed that the government had been creating an enabling environment to attract investment into India. He highlighted that India was a nation of 1.4 billion people who are both youthful and aspirational with excellent skills, including managerial skills. He observed that the government had been successful in meeting the basic requirement of life of the people, liberating them from the struggle to secure the basic amenities of life, thereby empowering them to aspire for better things in life.
These enhanced aspiration levels, the Minister said, presented a huge market opportunity to investors, in addition to sharpening India’s competitive edge in the world market due to the willingness people have to work harder and contribute more to India’s growth story. ‘Government has focused on greater Ease of Doing Business, reducing compliance burden, decriminalising laws, implementing PLI scheme in critical sectors, digitising the economy promoting Startups. The world will not get a better friend and trusted partner like India’, he noted.
Demystifying the reasons behind India’s trade deficit and import reliance, the Minister stressed that with the high levels of investments coming into manufacturing in India, India had been succeeding in producing high quality goods and services at competitive prices, rapidly reducing reliance on imports.
He underscored that the government was focusing extensively on bringing in quality consciousness through various initiatives such as Quality Control Orders (QCOs). The Minister also mentioned that the number of QCOs had grown by over four times and stands at about 440 products now and in the next two years, it would grow upto 2000 helping achieve India’s aspiration of achieving, Zero Defect, Zero Affect. The Minister spoke of India’s sustainability thrust and said that since time immemorial, respect for nature was deep rooted in India’s civilizational ethos. ‘Sustainability and quality are the two factors that will hold India in good stead in the times to come’, he added.
Goyal said that India would soon touch the mark of being a USD 5 trillion economy and said that it would emerge as the third largest economy in the world by 2027-28. By 2047, India will be a developed economy with a USD 32 trillion economy, a prosperous economy where every last citizen would have access to a good quality life, he said and added that if the nation came together as one, India could even dream of building a USD 40 trillion economy by 2047.
