India’s merchandise exports grew over 15% in April-August, crossing the $200 billion mark for the first five months of the financial year, as the country strengthens trade agreements despite worldwide economic turmoil.
India’s merchandise exports rose by more than 15% in the April-August period, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday, signalling that the country has crossed the $200bn mark in goods exports in the first five months of the financial year. That would put shipments well ahead of the $183bn recorded in the same period a year earlier, even as global trade remained volatile.
Speaking at the Brics Women’s Business Alliance Summit in New Delhi, Goyal said the export performance showed resilience despite “all the global turmoil that the world is going through today”. The Commerce Ministry is due to release the official August trade figures on September 15, which will provide the first full government-backed snapshot of the current fiscal year’s export trend.
The minister also tied the stronger export numbers to India’s wider push to broaden market access through trade deals. He said India has, over the past four and a half years, concluded arrangements giving preferential access for Indian goods and services with 38 developed economies, covering roughly two-thirds of global trade. He added that the network could expand to as many as 60 to 75 economies over the next 18 months.
India has signed eight trade agreements in the past five years, including pacts with the UK, the EU, EFTA, New Zealand and Australia, according to government and industry reports. So far this year, New Delhi has implemented deals with Oman and the UK, and officials expect at least one more agreement, with New Zealand, to take effect by March. The government has set an ambitious target of $1tn in total exports, and Goyal suggested that the expanding trade architecture should help sustain momentum.
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