FTAs to boost service exports: Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday that by 2030, India, the world’s seventh-largest services exporter, is likely to have achieved the huge service export target of US$ 1 trillion. He added that this is nearly five times of what it exported last fiscal. He added that this is conditional to India boosting opportunities in high-growth segments beyond the dominant information technology and IT-enabled services (ITeS). Thus, India needs to improve focus on promising areas like higher education, hospitality and medical tourism.Goyal also opined that India has transformed from being the ‘Back office’ of the world to its ‘Brain office’.
The minister noted that sectors like tourism and hospitality, which were battered by the pandemic, are showing signs of revival. He said that to support the services sector, the government has been actively pursuing market access opportunities via free-trade agreements with several key economies. These include the UK, the EU, Australia and the UAE. Goyal also said that the government is working on a programme that could replace the Service Exports from India Scheme in its current form.