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Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Anant Swarup has said that the commerce ministry has initiated an exercise to identify required infrastructure needs, potential sectors, and clusters which would help the country achieve the $1 trillion merchandise exports target by 2030. He said that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been requested to conduct a study in this regard.

Swarup said ‘if the country is targeting $1 trillion of exports by 2030, there is a likelihood of about $1.5 trillion of imports, so do we have enough capacity to cater to $2.5 trillion of EXIM (export and import) trade. So that is the target on which the department is working’.  He also said ‘the ADB is doing a study for us because what is more important is from where the $1 trillion of exports is going to come from; which are those sectors and clusters from where this $1 trillion of exports is going to come from. That is very critical for us. Because unless we know about the clusters, and ports or airports from where this $1 trillion of exports and $1.5 trillion of imports is going to happen, we would not be able to do a baseline study to identify the gaps which exist and then enhance our infrastructure capabilities’.

He further said that the government is also focusing on ways to push India’s integration into the global supply chains (GVCs) as at present about 70 per cent of the global trade is happening through these chains. For this, there is a need to increase manufacturing. He added that generally exports and imports move in tandem. India’s merchandise exports dipped by 3.11 per cent to $437 billion in 2023-24. Imports too dipped to $677.24 billion in the last fiscal.