Eyeing $6-7 trillion goods, services exports by 2047, says Piyush Goyal

“The kind of export numbers that we are seeing, we will probably cross $750 billion this year…we are looking at $2 trillion by 2030 services and goods. When you extrapolate it further to 2047, we should be looking at $6- 7 trillion of exports of goods and services,” Goyal said at the The Economic Times Startup Awards.

“At that level we’ll start seeing the rupee also appreciating and thus I wouldn’t be surprised if we can actually break those barriers and really go forward with very, very strong numbers,” he said.

On Free trade agreements (FTA), he said: “The UK was very keen to close the free trade agreement by Diwali but we are all aware of the political turmoil in that country over the last three, four months, which held them back”.
Goyal said that three rounds of talks have happened with the European Union already.

“Discussions are ongoing, but the European Union is 27 countries and you need to build up consensus and literally negotiate deal in which every one of them also gets interested and is willing to sign on,” he said.

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India is also in talks with Canada for a free trade pact.

“(With) Canada, we are looking at an early progress partnership where we are trying to look at the low hanging fruits…we’ve discussed and decided that every 15 days will progress and review the progress of the FTA. That’s the level of interest” he said.

Goyal said that because of the delay in the trade pact with the UK, Canada is very keen that to be the first G7 country to sign up with India.

“So we are having two ministers negotiating with India to see who goes first,” he said, adding that India will launch another FTA negotiation with a group of six countries next week and that Russia and its group of countries wants to start the FTA negotiations.

“Therefore we are in a good sweet spot. But negotiations are to come up with a fair, balanced and equitable agreement. No agreement is going to be signed up for the sake of an agreement. It has to be win-win for both will need to open up some they need to open up their markets for us,” Goyal said, emphasising that the agreement needs to give “tangible and substantial gains to both sides” and have to be done “very carefully”.

He said India is “being very, very cautious” in negotiations, which will open up large market opportunities for the country’s startups, technologies and innovators in those countries.

The Indian startup ecosystem is now 82,000 strong, he said.

“While some of the international companies are talking of layoffs today, our Indian start-ups are offering to hire them…Frankly every day that I see twitter and all the mess that they are in, I am happy that I was one of the first to get on to Koo. I think Koo should take over twitter. That’s the strength of Indian entrepreneurs and start ups. These tough times that the world is facing is an opportunity we should not miss,” Goyal said.