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Govt Plans to Double Goods Exports to $400 bn in 3 years

New Delhi: Government is working on an ambitious plan to double India’s merchandise exports to $400 billion in the next three years, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar said on Tuesday.

"That exercise has started off. Hopefully in two months, I would come out with a strategy paper which will say exactly how we intend to go from $200 billion to $400 billion in the next three years from now," he said.

Khullar was speaking to reporters here after releasing a study on promoting India’s engineering exports.

He said ramping up exports was essential in the backdrop of fast rising trade gap.

The export-import deficit gap this fiscal is expected to go up to $125 billion.

"If the balance of trade is going to hit over $125 billion, that is roughly 10% of the GDP and that’s huge balance of trade deficit," he said expressing concern over it.

Khullar said engineering exports which contribute 22% of the country’s shipments, will have to play a major role to boost the total numbers.

"The share of these guys (engineering exporters) will have to go from $45 billion to $90 billion," Khullar said.

He said besides engineering, the major contributors to achieving the $400 billion target would be pharmaceuticals and chemicals.

Indian exports for April-October aggregated $121.4 billion and are likely to touch $200 billion by end of this fiscal.

Commerce minister Anand Sharma had also said that the country’s exports are expected to double by 2014.

Source : livemint.com