In its bid to ensure that the country's trade deficit does not go up, the government is looking at doubling
exports to $50 billion in the next three years, a senior foreign trade official said on Friday.
"By March 31 this year, the Government of India thought exports should be $200 billion. However, in February itself we have crossed that figure and therefore by March-end we will do around $225 billion of export. This year's deficit is likely to be around $120 billion," Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Anup K Pujari said.
"The (export) target for the fiscal (2010-11) has been achieved by February itself. Since we are doing well...our exports are likely to be in the area of $225 billion. Last month our exports increased by 31 per cent compared to February 2010," he said.
The country's trade deficit this year is likely to be around $120 billion, which is less than 2.5 per cent of our GDP and over the years we would like to bring it down as a percentage of GDP, Pujari said.
"And in order to see that in the future our trade deficit does not increase, government wants to increase the exports in the next three years by doubling it from this year's export figure. So, we will try to reach $450 billion of export in the next 3 years," he added.
Pujari said Andhra Pradesh, which was given Rs 152 crore under the Assistance to States for Infrastructure Development for Exports scheme (granted to state governments for developing export infrastructure), had made an outstanding achievement by completing 81 out of the 85 projects relating to export infrastructure.
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