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Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that India is on track to achieve the $400-billion export target in the current fiscal (FY22) and is negotiating trade agreements with countries like the UAE, the EU and Canada. He noted that for 10th month in a row, April 2021 to January 2022, India has posted over $30 billion of exports. It is a record, it has already crossed $334 billion of exports which is more than the highest ever that it has done in full 12 months period.

Goyal has stated that the prices of most of the commodities, including petroleum products, are prevailing high and because of this there is a stress on all sectors. However, he said international prices of finished products have commensurately increased and hence the exports of these products have not faced detriments. He also said that the government is working to negotiate free trade agreements (FTA) or comprehensive economic partnership so that Indian exporters to get similar price advantage benefits.

The minister said ‘we have launched FTA negotiations with the UAE, Australia, the United Kingdom, the EU, Canada. We are also in dialogue with GCC countries -- the bloc of six countries in the Middle East-- who have shown keen interest in FTA with India and we hope to launch the negotiation in the near future’. With regard to support to small and medium industries, he said Rs 4.50 lakh crore government-guaranteed loans were given to 1.30 crore MSMEs during the Covid pandemic. He added that the government is committed to increasing manufacturing and see India as manufacturing hub.