Services to help Indian exports get closer to FY23 high of $770 billion in FY24

An estimated double digit growth in services exports in January 2024 is expected to help India's overall goods and services exports for 2023-24 to be very close to the previous year's exports by value.

According to the commerce ministry's initial estimates, India's goods and services exports were worth $ 638.37 billion during the April-January FY24 period, marginally lower than $ 639.59 billion registered during the same period the previous year (2022-23). India's goods and services exports in 2022-23 were worth $ 770.18 billion. Services exports, which grew 26.79 % year on year to touch $ 322.72 billion in 2022-23 was the prime driver for Indian export performance the previous year too.

What helped Indian exports close the gap was the estimated $32.8 billion worth of exports in services in January 2024, as against $28 billion in January 2023. The commodity exports in January 2024 were $36.92 billion, marginally higher than $35.8 billion registered during the same month, the previous year.

For the April-January 2023-24 period the services exports were $284.45 billion as compared to $267.5 billion registered during the same period, the previous year. Meanwhile, merchandise exports for the period April-January 2023-24 were $353.92 billion, lower than $372.1 billion registered during April-January 2022-23. However, much of this fall in export value came from petroleum and gem and jewellery sectors as non-petroleum and non-gems & jewellery exports during April-January 2023-24 was $256.83 billion, as compared to $259.21 billion in April-January 2022-23.

Commerce ministry officials pointed out that the significant growth in services exports has come at a time when the developed world, key destination for services exports, is yet to come out of economic recession. Buoyed by the services exports, India's overall growth during the month is 9.28%.

The key drivers of commodity exports growth in January 2024 were petroleum products - 6.57% growth to $8.21 billion in January 2024 from $7.7 billion the previous year, engineering goods (4.20% growth from $8.41 billion to $8.77billion), electronic goods (9.31% growth from $2.11 billion to $2.3 billion in Jan 2024) and drugs and pharmaceuticals (6.84% increase from $2 billion to $2.13 billion).