Piyush Goyal chairs meeting with Export Promotion Councils

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Tuesday chaired a meeting with various Export Promotion Councils (EPCs).

The Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Hardeep Singh Puri and senior officials of the Department of Commerce and Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) also took part in the meeting.

This was the 12th meeting held by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with the EPCs in the last year in order to resolve the export-related issues on priority.

Goyal lauded the performance of exporters making the nation proud through their resilience and hardwork.

He said that during 2020-21, India's cumulative value of overall exports declined by 7 per cent compared to the previous year, despite disruptions, uncertainty, lockdowns, gradual unlockings, supply chain difficulties, labour issues and order cancellations in the COVID year.

The Union Minister said the trade data for March 2021 reflects the build-up of a strong recovery in exports, as the merchandise exports in March 2021 grew by 60.29 per cent as compared to March 2020.

He assured the exporters that many of their issues, falling within the ambit of the Ministry, would be resolved in a time-bound manner.

Goyal called upon the exporters to strive to attain ambitious growth of more than 25 per cent to reach USD 400 billion merchandise exports during the current year.

( With inputs from ANI )