Chennai: The central government has set an ambitious target of tripling merchandise exports to $1 trillion in flat six years. This fiscal, the target is to touch merchandise exports of $419 billion.
India's merchandise exports have remained almost stagnant between $290 billion and $330 billion for the last 10 years.
The government also has set a target of achieving $700 billion services exports by 2027-28.
The government is in the process of putting together various measures to accelerate the country's exports. It is likely that the RoDTEP incentive scheme will be announced by this Friday.
And the new Foreign Trade Policy is expected by August-end.
The country's merchandise exports are expected to touch $1 trillion by 2027-28, commerce secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said at a CII summit. "We have actually laid down a road map on how we hit $500 billion in merchandise exports and when we hit trillion-dollar exports. Our guess is that, by 2027-28, very, very modest estimates, we should touch $1 trillion figure in exports of merchandise," he said.
As per the road map, districts will be treated as export hubs. About 100-150 districts will be funded well to develop quality export infrastructure. Each district will receive Rs 50 to 100 crore to develop itself as an export hub. Besides, the government also intends to set up a market intelligence network.
In order to improve the utilisation of land occupied by Special Economic Zones, the process of denotification will be eased. If the SEZ's land is used for industrial purposes, it could be hived off.
The Federation of Indian Export Organisa-tions said the target is achievable, though there are challenges. "In the first four months we have already achieved three-fourth of this year's target and August export orders are encouraging. How-ever, there are challenges with regard to cash flow and logistics," said Ajay Sahai, director general and CEO, Fieo.
"The industry needs a level-playing field. The government has to provide infrastructure facilities like large and small ports and availability of containers," said K. Unni-krishnan, Fieo deputy DG.
Subrahmanyam said the Centre will notify Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) rates probably by Friday.
