New Delhi : Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal has set an ambitious goal for the services sector of achieving $1 trillion of exports by 2030 and has called for making India the top service provider in the world by leveraging on the sector’s competitive advantage powered by skills, startups, IT solutions as well as its global attractiveness and acceptance.
Addressing industry and stakeholders at the conclave organized by the Export Promotion Council, the Minister on Tuesday called upon the services sector to build upon these advantages to establish its presence as a potential growth sector like the IT/ITes. Observing that India’s services export largely comprise of IT/ITes, Goyal stressed that we need to focus on other potential growth sectors.
Though services are a key driver of India’s economic growth, providing employment to nearly 2.6 crore people and contributing approximately 40% to India’s total global exports, the industry has lagged behind its peer group IT/ IT enabled sector. However, as Goyal pointed out, while services trade remained depressed in other countries, India’s services sector has shown resilience with $89 billion trade surplus in FY 2020-21.
In 2020, India became the 7th largest services exporter in the world, moving up the ladder by two positions and services PMI rose to a decade high of 58.4 in October. The sector has been the largest foreign direct investment recipient (53% of FDI inflows in 2000-2021).
Goyal listed sectoral opportunities which can catapult India’s services sector on a high growth trajectory such as online training courses and language courses in education sector, development of new innovative bundle tour packages in tourism sector and supply of nursing staff to various countries. He also highlighted the huge opportunities that lie in cloud gaming, virtual reality and emerging areas like AI, big data, robotics and on the need to expand markets for legal/accounting professionals.
While Rs 56,027 crore has been released under various export promotion schemes and the Government was actively pursuing market access opportunities (FTAs), Goyal recognised the need for assisting states in formulating a comprehensive export strategy with districts as export hubs, introducing more standards improving quality.
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