India can achieve $1 trillion exports target this fiscal despite global headwinds: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday expressed confidence that India would achieve its ambitious $1 trillion exports target in the current financial year, despite geopolitical uncertainties and disruptions to global trade caused by the West Asia crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war."We will do, we can do," Goyal said, underlining the government's ambition to drive export growth by around 15% this fiscal.Speaking at the curtain raiser of the Invest Telangana Global Summit, the minister said India's exports of goods and services had reached an all-time high of $863 billion in 2025-26.

Building on that performance, the government has set a challenging target of taking combined exports to $1 trillion in 2026-27."There is tremendous volatility, uncertainty and huge challenges confront all of us and across the world. It is in these testing times that India shines out," he said.Goyal also said the nine free trade agreements (FTAs) finalised by India over the past five years would give domestic exporters preferential access to markets across economies with a combined gross domestic product of $60 trillion.Live EventsNine FTAs open up markets worth $60 trillionThe minister urged Telangana to leverage the trade agreements to expand its export footprint, suggesting that the state identify 50 leading products and services that could benefit from preferential market access under the FTAs.He also called for taking geographical indication (GI)-tagged products to international markets and moving up the pharmaceutical value chain to capture greater value from exports.Goyal identified emerging sectors such as space, defence, electronics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and machine learning as areas Telangana could focus on to strengthen its economic growth and export competitiveness.He also urged the state to accelerate efforts to improve the ease of doing business, saying targeted initiatives could help attract investment and support the expansion of domestic industries.Merchandise exports rise 18.5% in April-SeptemberIndia's merchandise exports rose 18.51% year-on-year to $259.89 billion during April-September 2026-27, while imports increased 16.31% to $437.53 billion, according to the figures provided.The merchandise trade deficit widened to $177.64 billion in the first half of the current fiscal, compared with $156.88 billion in the corresponding period of 2025-26.Services exports were estimated at $216.31 billion during April-September 2026-27, up from $199.02 billion a year earlier.Combined exports of goods and services were estimated at $476.2 billion in the first half of the current fiscal, putting the government’s $1 trillion annual target within reach if the pace of exports is sustained through the remainder of the year.(With inputs from PTI)(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)