Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal expressed confidence that India will achieve its $1 trillion export target for FY27 (2026-27), despite facing challenging global trade conditions. Addressing the 31st CII Partnership Summit event on Thursday, Goyal stated that he was confident looking at the first half numbers that the country would reach this milestone. The target represents a nearly 16% increase from last year's record of $863 billion, setting an ambitious benchmark for India's export performance. As per ANI, Goyal emphasized that India has set itself a big growth jump in exports and decided to look at a trillion dollars of exports in the current year, positioning the country as building bridges while the world builds walls.
New Delhi is planning to offer credit lines to African and Latin American nations to help domestic manufacturers find new buyers as steep US tariffs stall exports and trigger a factory capacity glut. According to new and renewable energy secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi, the ministry is working with Export Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) to extend loans and lines of credit to African and Latin American nations for procuring India-made solar modules. This response comes after US countervailing and anti-dumping duties of up to 126% on Indian solar cells and modules have forced domestic suppliers to explore new buyers in Africa and Europe. As per Mint, exporters are in discussions with EXIM Bank regarding facilities to facilitate solar module and wind turbine exports, with the ministry facilitating these discussions.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced that India is set to become a global car manufacturing hub, with all European carmakers planning to manufacture in the country. Speaking at The Dilli Dialogue, Goyal stated that "Finally India is going to become the global hub for car manufacturing. Everybody is going to come and manufacture in India and with Europe having such crazy regulations, it is going to be impossible to be competitive. All the European manufacturers will come to India." He noted that India has provided quota-based tariff concessions to the UK and the European Union in free trade agreements, with the pact with the UK operationalised on July 15 and the deal with the EU likely to be signed by the end of this year. Goyal referenced the success of Tata Motors, which struggled after acquiring Jaguar but eventually turned profitable through re-engineering and shifting models to India.
India's export momentum has shown remarkable strength with exports jumping 17.85% year-on-year to $215.91 billion during April-August this fiscal, while imports climbed 18.21% to $363 billion, according to latest commerce ministry data reported by Business Standard. Goyal credited the country's 63 million Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), global capability centres, and about 250,000 startups for the export momentum. He emphasized that the target was set by the people of India and businesses of India, not by the government alone. The minister highlighted that India had concluded nine free trade agreements (FTAs) with 38 developed countries in the past four and a half years, covering countries that account for $60 trillion of global GDP.
Pointing to the Reserve Bank of India's upgraded growth forecast of 7.1% on Wednesday, Goyal expressed expectations of growth exceeding 7% this year. As reported by ANI, he expressed confidence that India would maintain growth above 7 per cent in the current financial year, stating "I'm very confident that the current year will also once again give an upward of 7% growth." The minister also projected that the economy was on track to grow from the current $4 trillion to $30 trillion by 2047. Goyal urged the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to establish FTA utilization desks across every state council to help MSMEs understand markets, access opportunities, and join trade delegations abroad.
