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At present, exports constitute only around 18% of the $2.6-trillion GDP, which is currently the fifth largest in the world after the US, China, Japan, Germany and Britain, while the country’s share in global trade is paltry and is under 2% only.
The more than doubling of shipments will demand that the economy massively increase the share of manufacturing in the overall GDP basket, which is around 14%. Though the previous Congress government had set a target of taking this to 25% of GDP by 2020 has come a cropper and same is the fate under the present regime.
Addressing the Maharashtra Global Investor Summit, Prabhu said, “Exports are the driving force of our growth strategy. We are coming out with a comprehensive strategy to increase the share of global trade to 40% of GDP, which is likely to touch $5 trillion.”
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The minister also urged the business community to come up with a proper business plan to increase exports.
According to the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO), the current share of exports in GDP is only 18-19%.
“We are in the process of preparing a new strategy for diversifying our export basket to ensure that we export to new markets and ship out new products. For that we are preparing a marketing strategy,” the minister said, adding that the focus would be on attracting foreign investment and engaging the global community.
Prabhu informed that the government has called a meeting of all state ministers to discuss the export strategy. Currently, just four states – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka contribute almost 70% of exports.