Ministry of Commerce focuses on handloom & handicrafts industry
20 Apr '07
3 min read
Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry unveiled the Annual Supplement 2007 to the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-09 with a slew of major initiatives to impart further momentum to India's exports which have touched a record figure of US $125 billion (US $124.65 billion rounded off) during 2006-07.
Announcing the Annual Supplement at a press conference here, the Minister said that India's merchandise exports had almost doubled in three years – from US $63.84 billion in 2004 to US $125 billion, representing an annual compounded growth of 25% compared to 12.73% in the previous three years. During this period, India's share of world trade had also moved from 0.76% to more than 1%, with incremental exports in the last three years creating 75 lakh additional jobs.
In this background, the Minister announced a merchandise export target of US $160 billion for this fiscal (2007-08) and US $200 billion for 2008-09. “This upward revision in our goal – up from US $150 billion envisaged earlier – should not be difficult to attain, given our strong economic fundamentals, the entrepreneurship of our exporting community and the collective resolve of government and trade & industry”, Shri Kamal Nath said.
Stating that a liberal export policy had a direct effect on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and that the two were closely inter-linked, Shri Kamal Nath announced that FDI (equity) inflows had gone up to almost US $16 billion from US $5.5 billion in the previous year.
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