With no signs of the West Asia crisis receding in the near term, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has called a meeting of exporters on Monday as they start a fresh year, to take stock of current trends in international trade and the outlook for coming months.

The move comes against the backdrop of little growth in India’s goods exports over the last three financial years, and extremely volatile geopolitics creating big uncertainties over the immediate prospects.

The minister’s meeting with the export promotion councils and industry associations will occur after the signing ceremony of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and New Zealand.

The agreement will be signed by Goyal and New Zealand’s Minister of Trade and Investment Todd McClay who landed in India on Friday night. On Sunday he attended a business meeting with Goyal in Agra. “McClay reaffirmed that India is a strategic priority for New Zealand and actively pursue joint ventures and investment in India,” Goyal posted on ‘X’.

Since the start of the war in West Asia on February 28, India’s exports to its key regional markets have been severely hampered.

From a monthly average of $6 billion, shipments to the region last month stood at $2.5 billion. Exports in March to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India’s second-biggest market, declined by 61.9% to $1.29 billion. Exports to Saudi Arabia were down 45.6% to $527.8 million.

While essentials like food and pharmaceuticals are somehow reaching the region by using alternate ports and routes, shipping vessels and air cargo, bulk commodities in engineering, energy and petrochemicals have suffered.

To help the engineering sector, the government has recently included 167 steel products produced for export by micro and small enterprises in the Interest Equalisation Scheme (IES). Earlier a broad scheme – Resilience and Logistics Intervention for Export Facilitation (RELIEF)—was launched to enhance the insurance cover in case of default on payments by buyers in West Asia.

It also provides a partial reimbursement of up to 50% for high freight and insurance charges.

Exporters are seeking some flexibility in the scheme to make it more effective. Other exporter concerns revolve around disruptions in raw material, fuel and packaging material supplies.