New Delhi, Dec 29 (FN Bureau) With exporters across sectors flushed with orders for the next fiscal, there is ample room for pushing the growth prospects of India’s outbound shipments of goods and services, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations said on Wednesday. Commenting on the interim trade data of the Commerce Ministry for the first three weeks of December which has exhibited over 35% growth in exports, President, FIEO A Sakthivel, said that the performance is better than anticipated by us since lot of exports have been frontloaded and shipments generally meant for December have already been exported in November or earlier. Official data shows that for the period 1st – 21st December, 2021, the value of exports is USD 23.82 billion, up by 36.20% over the same period of 2020-21 which registered exports value of USD 17.49 billion. Export excluding POL, has increased in this period by 28.08% over same period of 2020-21 and up by 28.75% over same period of 2019-20.
For the period 15th – 21st December, 2021, the value of export is USD 7.36 billion, up by 20.83% over the same period of 2020-21 (USD 6.09 billion). Export excluding petroleum, has increased in this period by 24.56% over same period of 2020-21 and up by 29.25% over same period of 2019-20. According to FIEO, there will be additional exports coming from some of the PLI sectors in the next fiscal pushing overall exports, supplemented by the spin off effect of mega textile parks and food parks on the export of food and textile products. The FIEO President also expressed optimism over achieving exports of USD 500 billion. “Since we are likely to cross US$ 400 billion in 2021-22, we should focus and aim for exports in the vicinity of US$ 525-530 billion in 2022-23,” said Sakthivel, and urged industry to come forward to create capacities to meet the increasing demand as global focus is on India. According to a FIEO study, exports have seen a very balanced growth across sectors both in traditional exports as well as sunrise sectors of exports during the current fiscal. Apart from the encouraging order booking position of all exporters, the China plus one policy of global companies is helping India’s exports. A trend of India’s exports during the current year shows that in the first 7 months of the current fiscal, when the overall exports grew by about 59%, almost all regions showed a growth rate of about 60% or more except for ASEAN, North East Asia and CIS countries. Therefore, in the next year as well, FIEO forecasts that exports growth will be widespread and exports to NAFTA, Europe, Middle-East, Oceania will continue to boom particularly as India looks at concluding Free Trade Agreements with UK, UAE and CEPA and CECA with Canada and Australia respectively.