siliconindia | | APRIL 20228IN FocusNEW RECORD HIGH:INDIA ACCOMPLISHES $400 BILLION MERCHANDISE EXPORTS TARGETndia has accomplished the $400 billion mer-chandise exports target well before the set deadline, said Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Pub-lic Distribution and Textiles Piyush Goyal on Wednesday. The merchandise exports from India crossed the $400 billion-mark in the present financial year, that too nine days ahead of schedule. The earlier record high for exports stood at $330 billion achieved in 2018-19.At a press conference, the Minister said that there was a detailed strategy in place, which led to the accomplish-ment of the export target. The strategy consisted of spe-cific target sets such as - country-wise, product-wise and EPC-wise monitoring as well as course correction. The target of $400 billion of merchandise exports for 2021-22 was set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had exhort-ed the exporting community to search for new products in the export basket, look for newer destinations and make sure deeper penetration of the existing product and mar-kets."Thus, in order to achieve the target and approach set by the PM, the Department of Commerce disaggregated the $400 billion target in terms of regions and countries, as well as product or commodity groups. The government prepared a detailed strategy for achieving the targets and an elaborate monitoring system", the ministry stated.The disaggregated targets have enabled tight moni-toring by 'Country or Region or Mission or Export Pro-motion Councils. Not withstanding the challenges posed by successive waves of Covid, India's merchandise trade performance has shown impressive growth, and exports stayed above $30 billion for eleven consecutive months during April to February, wherein December 2021 in par-ticular recorded the highest ever monthly merchandise exports recorded at $39.3 billion.According to the sectors, engineering goods exports have gone up by nearly 50 percent vis-a-vis last year. "Higher engineering exports, apparel and garment export indicate that the misconception of India being a major ex-porter of primary commodities is gradually changing. We are now exporting more and more value added and high IIn order to achieve the target and approach set by the PM, the Department of Commerce disaggregated the $400 billion target in terms of regions and countries, as well as product or commodity groupsBy SI Team
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