India's Merchandise Export Touched A Record $418 Billion In 2021-22 Despite Pandemic: Piyush Goyal

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal today said that India's merchandise exports touched a record $418 billion in 2021-22 and this was possible because the government worked unitedly with small and medium enterprises and farmers to achieve this feat.

Merchandise exports' growth was mainly helped by higher shipments of petroleum products, engineering goods, gems and jewellery as well as chemicals during 2021-22, he added.

Addressing a press conference, Mr Goyal said that during 2021-22, $20 billion worth of exports was achieved on a monthly basis and this was made possible despite the second and third wave of Coronavirus pandemic hitting the country hard.

In fact exports touched an all-time monthly high of $40 billion in March 2022, he informed. This mark was breached on March 23, 2022.

India's top five export destinations were the US, UAE, China, Bangladesh and the Netherlands.

"Our MSME sector, exporters, farmers, everybody together took India to new heights successfully," he said.

The Commerce Minister also tweeted about the record breaking exports.

Giving the example of the Hindi-Telugu bilingual film "RRR", which is learnt to have done the highest-ever business of Rs 750 crore in the history of Indian cinema, Mr Goyal said that Indian economy is also ready to break all records just like the film as India has the capability to achieve impossible targets.

He said that despite global supply chains being disrupted due to the Ukraine-Russia war and shipping costs sky-rocketing, India has managed to achieve an all-time monthly high export of $40 billion in March 2022. 

The Commerce Minister also said that between 2019-20 and 2021-22, there has been a record-breaking 3,500 per cent growth in wheat exports.

In 2019-20, wheat exports stood at 2 LMT while in 2021-22 they shot up to 70 LMT.

Mr Goyal thanked farmers for their cooperation in boosting country's agri-exports.