Exports may touch $1 trn by FY28

India's merchandise exports are expected to touch $1 trillion by 2027-28 and the government has laid down a road map, including district as an export hub scheme, to achieve that number, Commerce Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam said on Wednesday.

This fiscal, the commerce ministry is aiming at $419 billion of exports and for that a detailed analysis has been carried out and the target was disaggregated at the level of country, commodity, region, and states across 31 commodity groups.

The secretary said that Indian exports have been roughly fluctuating between $290 billion and $330 billion for the last 10 years.

"We have actually laid down a roadmap on how we hit $500 billion in merchandise exports and when we hit a trillion dollar exports. Our guess is that, by 2027-28, very modest estimates, we should touch $1 trillion figure in exports of merchandise," Subrahmanyam said at the CII's Annual Meeting 2021.

He also said that work is underway for the services sector as well and the target is to take these exports to $700 billion in 2027-28.

The services exports' sector has "no mother, and they are an orphan in many ways" as it is distributed among 30 different departments of the government, he said, adding "we are going to start an exercise. We export about $200 billion services every year. The target is actually to hit about $700 billion by 2027-28".

Listing out steps which the ministry is going to take to achieve these targets, he said as Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), and Services Exports from India Scheme (SEIS), are stopped now, the government will notify Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) rates probably by Friday.

Similarly, the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) scheme for textiles will be notified "today or tomorrow" and this would give a big boost to exports. "We are coming up with a scheme called district as an export hub. If you take 700 districts in the country, the scheme will actually work in a challenge mode. We will ask districts to compete with each other and about 100-150 districts will be funded well to develop quality export infrastructure." he added.

The secretary stated that a substantial amount of money would be put in these districts, which would be anywhere between Rs 50-100 crore for one district.

"We also intend to set up a market intelligence network....We are going to launch a brand India campaign a bit later in the year," he said.

About market intelligence, he said that the export target has been given to 140 Indian embassies and 60 consulates and they would help in providing information like export opportunities in their countries.

For the market intelligence network, a Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) kind of set up will be developed where exporters would get real time information.