PM Modi urges industry to set up long-term export targets, 'double efforts'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged industry to set up long-term export targets and suggest ways for the government to achieve those figures.

Despite disruptions in the global economy, India’s goods and services exports stood at $670 billion and exceeded the $400-billion target for merchandise export alone, he said.

“Encouraged by this success of the past years, we have now increased our export targets and doubled our efforts to achieve them. Collective effort of everyone is very necessary to achieve these new goals,” Modi said, adding there was also a need to set long-term export targets.

The Prime Minister was speaking at the inauguration of the new Vanijya Bhawan in New Delhi.  He said the Bhawan would significantly benefit people associated with trade, commerce and the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.

He also launched the NIRYAT (National Import-Export for Yearly Analysis of Trade) portal. The portal aims to break silos by providing real-time data to all stakeholders.

“From this portal, important information related to more than 30 commodity groups exported to more than 200 countries of the world will be available. In the coming time, information related to district-wise exports will also be available on this. This will also strengthen the efforts to develop districts as important centres of exports,” he said.

He also said that exports play a critical role in transforming a developing country into a developed nation, besides creating job opportunities.