Trade Union Minister for Trade and Industry Piyush Goyal held a press conference in New Delhi

During a press conference, Union Trade and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said India’s goods exports hit a record $418 billion in 2021-22, up over 40% year-on-year and 33% above pre-pandemic levels 2019-20.

Exports of engineered goods reached a record $111 billion, of which about $16 billion worth of goods were shipped to the United States alone.

While previous exports were dominated by neighboring and ASEAN countries, this year saw a significant increase in exports to developed countries such as the US, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, Belgium and Germany.

March 2022 also saw its highest-ever monthly exports of over $40 billion, Mr Goyal said.

Mr Goyal said: “Growth has occurred in sectors that have smaller businesses and affect the agricultural sector. I congratulate the farmers on increasing their productivity in such a way that wheat exports have increased from 2 lakh tons in 2019-20 to 21.55 lakh tons last year in 2021-22 it is over 70 lakh tons grown.”

The Union Minister said: “Similar growth has been seen in jute products, textiles, leather, gems and jewelry, among other labour-intensive sectors. We will continue to work hard to improve the capacity of MSMEs and the agricultural sector to increase exports and create jobs.

“Even a pandemic like COVID-19 and the war-like situation did not deter our export target for the year. When there is decisive leadership from a leader like PM Narendra Modi with a whole government and whole nation approach, it has been reflected in these results.”

He said, “We will continue to export wheat on a large scale to countries affected by the conflict in Ukraine and Russia (major global wheat suppliers) and hope to comfortably export 100 lakh tons of wheat this year.”

Trade Minister BVR Subrahmanyam said, “3.5 million tons of wheat were exported to Bangladesh, mostly through the Petrapole land border.”