New Delhi:- India's exports in January 2022 rose 25.28 per cent to $34.50 billion from $27.54 billion in January 2021. In December 2021, merchandise exports stood at $37.8 billion, the highest-ever for any month, data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has showed. On the other hand, India's overall exports in January 2022 stood at $61.41 billion, witnessing a growth of 36.76 per cent, in comparison to the same period last year.
Similarly, merchandise imports have also grown up from $42.53 billion in January 2021 to $ 51.93 billion in January 2022. Treading the same path, overall imports have also risen from $51.91 to $67.76 billion, which marks the growth of 30.54 per cent.
The overall exports in April to June quarter in 2021-2022 have risen to $546 billion from $396 billion in April-June quarter of 2020-2021, witnessing a growth of 38 per cent. Commenting on this, Piyush Goyal took to Twitter and said, "Export momentum continues, good and services exports grew by 38 per cent in April-June 2021-2022 over same period last year."
"Exports performance during April-January 2022 has been remarkable and we are on course to achieve the milestone of $400 billion this fiscal. The growth has been all encompassing as almost all sectors have exhibited encouraging trends," Ajay Sahai, CEO of Federation of Indian Export Organisations said.
The government had set the export target of $400 in FY22 and is expecting exports to reach $500 billion in FY23. As far as the long term goal is concerned, the government has set an ambitious target of taking overall exports to the $2 trillion level; of which $1 trillion will come from merchandise exports and $ 1 trillion from services exports.
But to reach this target, CII in a recent report has said that India needs to adopt a multidimensional approach to take the country's merchandise exports to $ 1 trillion by 2030. According to the industry body, these multidimensional approach includes taking step such as finalising FTAs for better market access, extending RoDTEP (Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products, an export promotion scheme) to all exports and attracting FDI in India.
Throwing light on the roadmap to achieve the target put forward by the government, Sahai of FIEO said, "We need to build on the momentum as industry is flushed with exports orders and the emerging ecosystem will be further supportive of exports with PLI scheme, mega food and textile parks schemes, better access to the markets through FTAs, revamped SEZ scheme and improved infrastructure and logistics."
In a bid to boost exports, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Union Budget 2022 had announced a slew of measures ranging from the extension of ECLGS for MSMEs, replacing Special Economic Zone Act with a new legislation, and many more.
Trade Deficit
The government data has also showed that the trade deficit in January 2022 has widened to $17.42 billion from $14.49 billion.The trade deficit for April-January 2021-22 rose to $159.87 billion from $75.87 billion in April-January 2020-21.
"The fall in mobility and the demand for gold with the onset of the third wave and the associated restrictions, helped to pull back the merchandise trade deficit to a five month low to $17.4 billion in January 2022," Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist at ratings agency ICRA said.
According to Nayar of ICRA, the imports will moderate to $30-35 billion in 2022. Nayar expects the current account deficit to widen to a gaping $26-29 billion in Q3 FY2022, before easing back to $15-17 billion in Q4 FY2022.
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