Hailing India's success in achieving its goods export target of USD 400 billion this fiscal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted today that this is a key milestone in India's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' journey.

The highest ever goods export target was achieved nine days ahead of the March 31 deadline.

Exports increased by 37 per cent to USD 400 billion during April-March 22, 2021-22 against USD 292 billion in 2020-21.

For the first time ever, India's merchandise exports have crossed USD 400 billion in a fiscal. In 2018-19, the outbound shipments had touched a record of USD 330.07 billion.

"India set an ambitious target of USD 400 billion of goods exports and achieves this target for the first time ever. I congratulate our farmers, weavers, MSMEs, manufacturers, exporters for this success. This is a key milestone in our Aatmanirbhar Bharat journey. #LocalGoesGlobal," PM Modi tweeted.

He posted graphics of India achieving the highest-ever exports target nine days ahead of the intended deadline.

According to those graphics, the government approach with closer interaction with states and districts; engagement with exporters and faster resolution of their issues; and actively engaging with different export promotion councils, industry associations and other stakeholders have helped in reaching this milestone.

On average, goods worth about USD 33 billion were shipped every month and about USD one billion every day.

The key export sectors, which contributed to record healthy growth include petroleum products, electronic goods, engineering goods, leather, coffee, plastic, ready-made garments of all textiles, meat and dairy products, marine products and tobacco.

Commenting on the data, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Director General Ajay Sahai said crossing USD 400 billion is a remarkable achievement as exporters have added over USD 110 billion in one year to reach here despite huge logistics challenges, including container shortage, skyrocketing freight and liquidity constraints.

"What is more important is to build on it, as we will have benefits of new free trade agreements and the PLI scheme (production linked incentive) backing us," he said.

FIEO Vice-President Khalid Khan termed the achievement as a "landmark" and said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic exports have "done so well".