India’s exports of goods surged to a record high of $417.8 billion in FY22, boosted by higher shipments of petroleum products, engineering goods, gems and jewellery and textile products, according to the data released by the Commerce Ministry on Sunday. Exports for the year were 43.2 per cent higher than shipments of $291.8 billion in FY21 and 26.6 per cent higher than exports of $330.1 billion in FY19, which saw India’s previous record high.
FY22 is also expected to mark record high imports and trade deficit for India, with imports for the first 11 months of the fiscal having grown by 59.2 per cent to $550.1 billion and almost doubling India’s trade deficit to $176.1 billion in the period. The government had not released data on imports for March at the time of publishing.
“In March alone, exports exceeded $40 billion which we have never achieved before. There were exports of over $30 billion in each month of this fiscal,” Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said.
Merchandise exports in March were up 14.5 per cent, compared to the previous fiscal year, with a significant jump in exports to developed countries such as the US, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, Belgium and Germany. India’s engineering goods exports grew by 45.5 per cent to hit an all time high of $111 billion with shipments to the US alone accounting for $16 billion of engineering goods exports. The total value of petroleum product exports grew by 152.1 per cent boosted by elevated crude oil prices. The UAE was the top destination for petroleum product export in FY22. Gems and jewellery exports grew by 49.6 per cent with China emerging as the top destinations for such shipments.
Goyal has previously said that while higher global commodity prices have boosted the value of India’s exports, a majority of exports have seen an increase in both volume and value of outbound shipments. Officials said India exported 7 million tonnes of wheat in the fiscal, with its shipments rising to $2.05 billion up from about $530 million in the previous fiscal.
“We will continue to export wheat in a big way to meet needs in countries who are not getting supplies from conflict areas,” Goyal said, adding India’s wheat exports were likely to cross 10 million tonnes in the next fiscal.
India is exploring the possibility of exporting wheat to countries like Turkey and Egypt, which rely on supply from Russia and Ukraine to meet their requirements.