Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal expresses confidence in India’s export potential and foreign exchange position. India’s free trade agreements (FTAs) will help generate surpluses and enhance its foreign exchange position, which is already comfortable for the next five-six years, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the annual session of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Goyal said that India’s FTAs will accelerate the process of becoming an economy that reports surpluses, while keeping a strong economy. He also said that he has no doubt that India will achieve its target of $1 trillion each of goods and services exports by 2030, as its export basket has all the things that the world desires. “Our import basket largely gets affected by oil that will have its own trajectory possibly a lowering trajectory or a downward trend in the years to come,” he added.

India’s overall exports, including both goods and services, increased 13.84% to $770 billion in FY23 as against $676 billion in FY22. The trade deficit was a record $266.78 billion in the year. Goyal said that India is the largest internet community and the world will follow what it does. He also said that FTAs are a two-way traffic and that India should not shy away from opening up its market to others. He said that the government is negotiating trade pacts with the UK, Canada, European Union and the EFTA which comprises Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.

On India’s foreign exchange situation, Goyal said: “In the worst case, with whatever difficulties anybody may have, India is comfortable for the next five or six years given our forex reserves today to be able to meet our foreign exchange requirements.” India’s forex reserves rose $5.98 billion to $578.78 billion as on March 31, 2023, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The foreign currency assets (FCA), the biggest component of the forex reserves, saw a rise of $4.38 billion to $509.72 billion. The gold reserves rose by $1.37 billion to $45.48 billion while SDRs and India’s reserve position in the IMF saw an increase of $18.41 million and $5.15 million each.

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