The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) on Thursday said that FY22 is expected to end with merchandise exports of $400 billion, a growth of 37.6% over $290.6 billion of exports in FY21, but the aim for the next fiscal is $460-475 billion.
Since $400 billion would be a high base for FY23, export growth of 30-35% on such numbers would be difficult, particularly as additional exports may require augmenting the capacity as well, FIEO said in a statement.
"Looking into the emergence of the new variants (of Covid-19) and supply-side challenges at this point of time, we would like to be a little conservative and will aim for an export of $460-475 billion during the next fiscal," said FIEO President A Sakthivel.
Much will depend on the containment of Covid-19 through massive vaccination across the globe and the creation of required capacity, which would decide whether India should look for 15-20% growth or even more for the next financial year, according to the statement.
"Moreover, the spectacular increase in global trade by about 22%, buoyed by high prices of commodities, as witnessed in 2021 will not be there to provide the tailwind to our exports," he said, highlighting the emergence of the new variants and supply-side challenges.
Sakthivel said the good thing with India's exports has been a very balanced growth across sectors both in traditional exports as well as sunrise sectors of exports during the current fiscal.