Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will hold a meeting with representatives of export promotion councils and industry associations on Monday to discuss ways to boost the outbound shipments, an official said.
The meeting will be held after India and New Zealand sign the free trade pact here at Bharat Mandapam. Todd McClay, New Zealand's Minister for Trade and Investment, is here with a business delegation.
Meanwhile, both ministers held discussions with exporters in Agra on Sunday. Representatives of industries such as leather, footwear, pharma, sports goods and light engineering were present in the meeting.
The Monday meeting is also important as Indian exporters are reeling under the impact of the West Asia crisis, triggered by the US-Israel conflict with Iran. Shipping companies are reluctant to carry goods to Middle Eastern countries, a key export destination for Indian businesses.
Merchandise exports posted the steepest fall in five months, declining 7.44 per cent in March to $38.92 billion due to trade uncertainty and geopolitical tensions, with shipments to West Asia contracting by more than 50 per cent.
The trade deficit, however, narrowed to a nine-month low of $20.67 billion in March on account of lower imports.
Imports dipped 6.51 per cent to $59.59 billion in March, driven by a significant decline in inbound shipments of crude oil and gold, the data showed. India's exports to the Middle East fell 57.95 per cent in March, while imports from the Gulf nations contracted 51.64 per cent.
For the full 2025-26 fiscal year, exports grew 0.93 per cent to an all-time high of $441.78 billion, while imports rose 7.45 per cent to $775 billion. The trade deficit ballooned to $333.2 billion due to a jump in gold and silver imports during the last fiscal year.
The country's goods and services exports increased by an estimated 4.22 per cent to an all-time high of $860.09 billion in 2025-26 against $825.26 billion in 2024-25.
The government has rolled out a host of measures to cushion exporters from the impact of the conflict in the Gulf region, a key market for India's exports such as gems and jewellery, rice and pharma, which were valued at about $57 billion in 2024-25.
Published on April 26, 2026