Exports could top 2004-05 target

India was likely to surpass its export target by as much as a $2 billion by March 2005.

"The export figure till December stands at $63 billion and we had targeted a $73 billion export figure this year. The actual figure is likely to touch $75 billion," explained Kamal Nath, the central industry and commerce minister. "This would be a 24 per cent growth over the previous year which witnessed a $54 billion export figure," he added.

This has propelled the government to peg the export target for 2005-06 at $ 88 billion "" and the economy is likely to see exports grow at 19 per cent for the next three years thereafter.

"Share of India's export in the global economy was around 0.75 per cent which was likely to double to 1.5 per cent in the next four years," Nath explained.

Nath said that the ideal situation should be dual existence of World Trade Agreement and regional bilateral and regional agreements.

"Regional trade being part of bilateral or regional agreement constitute as much as 60 per cent of the global trade and the ideal situation would be where both types of agreements co-existed," Nath said.

Nath said the biggest challenge in the next ten years would be handling non-tariff barriers.

"Issues of non-tariff barriers be it agricultural or non-agricultural should also be built into the trade agreement treaties that the countries would be signing," he added. Sectoral issues should be resolved on a negotiated basis.

Talking about agriculture the minister said that Indian agriculture was for subsistence and that the amount of subsidy was to the tune of $1 per month against $1 billion per month in the OECD countries.

Land holding in India for agriculture was only 1.5 hectare per farmer which resulted in production from the land only for subsistence.