New FIEO President Mr. Ganesh Kumar Gupta expects the merchandise exports to be around $315 billion and services exports to about $185 billion in FY 2017-18. The Federation expects to end the fiscal 2016-17 with an export of about $270-275 billion as against $262 billion in the previous year, with a growth of around 3-4% for the year in the merchandise sector whereas in services sector FIEO is expecting an export of $160 billion in 2016-17.
Mr. Gupta is of the view that as we had already touched the $300 billion merchandise exports in the past also, we should look at more aggressively increasing our exports with previous 6 months specially the February exports showing an impressive double digit growth of around 17.5 per cent.
Mr. Gupta also feels that a greater emphasis needs to be given to exports in the new GST regime with liquidity being the key challenge for the exporters. He also said that in the upcoming mid-term review of the Foreign Trade Policy, there is a need relook at further diversify the product basket focusing more on high-tech products where India’s share in global trade is very low, to further compete in the international market.