Merchandise exports to scale new peak
Commerce secretary says new record in exports was achieved in difficult global economic conditions.
Hyderabad: The country’s merchandised exports are all set to surpass the peak of $314 billion recorded in 2013-14, said Union commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan.
He attributed this to the changes made in policy and regulations, ease of doing business and simplification of procedures.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of 19th edition of IndiaSoft, an event organised by Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), Mr Wadhawan said “For last three years, we are growing consistently in a very challenging environment. The downturn of 2008-09 when there was a financial crisis hit us quite badly but we recovered. We reached a peak figure of our exports in 2013-14 and then the global crisis got accentuated, the real economy got affected. Countries like China were also getting affected for the first time. Then again, there were a couple of years of slight downturn.”
Pharma, engineering products, petroleum products, gems and jewellery, leather products and textiles would be among sectors that contribute to the growth in the exports.
The official was confident that despite the challenging global environment, the country would be able to set a new mark.
During his keynote address, the secretary said, “We are taking measures to give a boost to the hardware and electronics sector. We incentivised R&D and are encouraging setting up the incubators which will help us move up in domestic value chain and exports. Our domestic electronics production in 2017-18 stood at $49.5 billion which is higher than $43 billion spent on imports. The success of software side is being emulated by hardware and hope we can have better balance in this area in future.”
He pointed that the IT exports are growing steadily and will continue to achieve that growth.
Dr Wadhawan added that very soon 60 per cent of India’s GDP would have to do something with artificial intelligence, robotics and IoTs and India.
Speaking on the current account deficit, Mr Wadhwan said that it was under control due to growing exports and stabilisation of petroleum prices to an extent. “I think the economy is in good shape,” he said.
About 400 delegates from 60 countries and 250 Indian exhibitors are participating in the two-day event being held for the sixth time in Hyderabad.