Goods exports touched $447 billion in 2022-23; final numbers awaited: Piyush Goyal

The country's goods exports touched USD 447 billion till the last count for 2022-23 fiscal year as against USD 422 billion in 2021-22, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday. The final export and import data for 2022-23 would be released by the mid of April.

At present, the ministry is in the process of collating the data. The trade data for goods comes with a lag of about 15 days and in the case of services data, it is 45 days.

Goyal said that services exports are estimated to cross USD 320 billion in 2022-23.

Growth in merchandise goods would be around 6 per cent for the last fiscal, he said, adding that it has grown from "USD 422 billion to USD 447 billion at last count (as the) final numbers are still awaited".

He said the country's exports are growing despite global challenges such as rise in raw material prices, restrictions in exports of certain products like wheat and Russia-Ukraine war.

"The final numbers (exports of goods and services will be closer to USD 765 billion... I would not be surprised if we actually go up to USD 772 billion which we figured while drawing the road map for USD 2 trillion of exports by 2030," the minister said.

If the data reaches USD 772 billion, Goyal said, "then, I will probably reset the USD 2 trillion target also".

Speaking at an event, he also said that express delivery services sector has huge potential for growth in India.

"To bridge the cost in logistics, we need to look at scale, efficiency and the building blocks through technology," he added.

Going by the strong foundation which the government is building in terms of high expenditure for developing modern infrastructure, internationalisation of trade , free trade agreements and growth in exports of goods and services, the economy size may reach USD 35-40 trillion by 2047, he added.