India has reached a historic milestone in their exporting journey. The nation has crossed the $776 billion mark in overall exports, according to the provisional data released by the commerce ministry on Monday. Although the increases compared to the previous year are barely marginal, they were enough to set a new record. The increase was driven by services exports, compensating for the 3.11% contraction in merchandise exports.
According to the data from the Commerce Ministry, India saw a small decline in merchandise exports. It fell to $437.06 billion in 2023-24. Also, services exports grew by 3.11%, as mentioned above, to $339.62 billion. The country’s trade deficit also decreased quite significantly. It decreased from $121.62 to $78.12 billion in FY24.
The commerce minister of India, Sunit Barthwal, also expressed his appreciation, saying, “We have beaten all the odds as we have surpassed the overall (exports) figures of 2022-23.”Barthwal also noted that this is a significant achievement, considering that exports depend purely on the global demand for goods. However, this demand was depressed because of all the chaos and drama happening in the world right now, citing the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Middle East conflict. Also, the country’s strategy to explore new markets with new tailored products helped it maintain the previous year’s numbers. India also aspires to increase its agriculture exports, which currently stand at around $53 billion of agriculture export, which will be a huge feather in India’s cap as it is one of the most agriculturally driven countries in the world.
The president of the Federation Of India Exports Organisations, Ashwini Kumar, also expressed his appreciation. He said that despite the ongoing conflict in Europe and the Red Sea, India still improved its export figures, which shows the sector’s dedication. Also, this year’s main merchandise exports included electronics goods, drugs and pharma, engineering goods, iron ore, cotton yarn, and handloom products, which Kumar said was a good sign. This is mostly because all of these sectors are labour-intensive, and India has no shortage of labour workforce.
