Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has expressed confidence that India will achieve its ambitious $1 trillion exports target in 2026-27, despite geopolitical uncertainties and disruptions to global trade arising from the West Asia crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We will do, we can do,” Goyal said, reaffirming the government’s ambition to increase exports by around 15% during the current financial year.
Speaking at the curtain raiser of the Invest Telangana Global Summit, the minister said India’s combined exports of goods and services had reached an all-time high of $863 billion in 2025-26. Building on this performance, the government is targeting $1 trillion in combined exports during 2026-27.
Acknowledging the challenges facing global trade, Goyal said India had demonstrated resilience amid considerable volatility and uncertainty in the international economic environment.
Nine FTAs Open Markets Worth $60 Trillion
Highlighting the opportunities created by India’s trade agreements, Goyal said the nine Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) finalised over the past five years would provide Indian exporters preferential access to markets across economies with a combined GDP of $60 trillion.
He urged Telangana to make effective use of these agreements by identifying 50 leading products and services from the state that could benefit from preferential market access.
The minister also called for expanding exports of Geographical Indication (GI)-tagged products and moving up the pharmaceutical value chain to capture greater value from international trade.
Identifying emerging growth areas, Goyal said Telangana should focus on sectors such as space, defence, electronics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and machine learning to strengthen its economic growth and export competitiveness.
He further emphasised the need to improve the ease of doing business through targeted initiatives to attract investments and support domestic industries.
Merchandise Exports Grow 18.51% in April-September
India’s merchandise exports increased 18.51% year-on-year to $259.89 billion during April-September 2026-27, while imports rose 16.31% to $437.53 billion.
The merchandise trade deficit widened to $177.64 billion during the first half of the current financial year, compared with $156.88 billion in the corresponding period of 2025-26.
Meanwhile, services exports were estimated at $216.31 billion during April-September 2026-27, compared with $199.02 billion in the year-ago period.
Combined exports of merchandise and services were estimated at $476.2 billion during the first six months of the fiscal year.
With nearly half of the annual target achieved in the first half, India remains positioned to pursue its $1 trillion exports ambition, provided the current growth momentum is sustained during the remaining months of FY27.