Goods, services exports from India should touch $1 trillion each: Piyush Goyal

Addressing NRIs and chartered accountants on Sunday, Goyal said last year services export was $194 billion and goods was $290 billion. “We would like both services and goods exports to compete with each other and together reach the $2 trillion mark. The gap is narrowing between both, thanks to the fact that the government is not involved in services exports,” he said.

The minister further said the government wants to triple exports of textiles from $33 billion last year to at least $100 billion by looking at newer and emerging areas like man-made fibre and technical textiles.

“This year, the target for textile exports is $44 billion. We have focussed too much on cotton and cotton based textiles. However, at present around two-thirds of international trade is man-made fibre and technical textile where we have a low share. This was never promoted in India, but now all efforts will be to diversify India’s textile portfolio in international trade,” said Goyal.

Goyal has been in Dubai since Friday for the Dubai Expo 2020 in his first overseas trip since the pandemic. During his trip, he met UAE government ministers, officials, top industrialists and CEOs, and the NRI community here.

The minister urged Indian and NRIs to invest in early stage start-ups where currently only foreign investors have shown interest. There is difficulty to get seed capital for early stage start-ups.

“Foreigners are picking up such stakes since they know that even if one or two out of the 100 does well, they will still make money. For instance, Flipkart at an early stage had sold stakes when its valuation was less than $1 billion which is now $36-billion. Such a venture capital fund by Indians or NRIs focussed on early stage investment will encourage several youngsters even if the fund does not earn money,” said Goyal.

The minister also urged the NRIs to talk and enthuse global business communities to participate in the government’s production linked incentive schemes. He said the government is soon coming up with a robust PLI policy for semiconductors.

(The writer is in Dubai for the Dubai Expo 2020 at the invitation of Ficci.)