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Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal has exuded confidence that during this fiscal (FY24), the country's goods and services export numbers will be at the same level; as it was last year despite slowdown and uncertainties in the global trade. He also said that the government measures such production-linked incentives (PLI) schemes and focus on high-quality goods and services would help in containing the country's trade deficit. He said ‘so our trade deficit will be significantly lower than last year.’

The minister said the war between Russia and Ukraine; Israel-Hamas is impacting global supply chains and the Red Sea crisis has led to significant increase in transportation costs and delay as Indian exporters have to send their consignments through the Cape of Good Hope, encircling Africa. He said that India saw a scorching pace of growth in its international trade in the years between 2021 and 2023. He said ‘we grew by 55 per cent over a period of two years, both in goods and in services. It went up to $776 billion in only two years. And with growth on both goods and services, we could clearly see that this year is going to be one where we will have to consolidate the gains.’

Cumulatively, the country's merchandise exports in April-January 2023-24 contracted by 4.89 per cent to $353.92 billion. The estimated value of services exports during the ten-month period stood at $84.45 billion. In 2022-23, India's goods and services exports stood at $776 billion.