Mounting trade worries

In a volatile global environment, India needs to act quickly on multiple fronts to salvage its exports

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INDIA'S TOTAL EXPORTS — merchandise and services combined — grew 6% to $825 billion in FY25. Much of this was fuelled by a robust 13.6% rise in services exports, which showed broad-based buoyancy.

At $387.5 billion, exports of services accounted for 47% of overall exports, 10 percentage points higher than the level seen a decade earlier. In the decade through FY25, India's services exports grew by an average annual rate of 10.3% and its share in global services exports rose from 1.9% in 2005 to 4.3% in 2023. India has kept pace with the best in "digitally delivered services". Globally, these have been a big driver of services trade, especially since early years of the millennium — the segment saw average annual growth rate of around 8% in the last two decades. Even though it is being acutely felt that the country must move up the value chain, the tempo may largely be sustained for another few years with relative ease.