Pegged as the ‘ChatGPT’ for exporters by the commerce ministry, the new digital portal for exporters Trade Connect e-Platform is the latest and perhaps the biggest effort in recent years by the Indian government in its quest to achieve the $1 trillion merchandise and $1 trillion services exports target by 2030.
In FY24, the country’s total exports (merchandise and services) had recorded a flat growth of 0.36 per cent to $776.68 billion from $776.40 billion in FY23. Merchandise exports stood at $437.06 billion in FY24, down from $451.07 billion in FY23 while services export grew to $339.62 billion in FY24 from $325.33 billion in FY23.
In commerce minister Piyush Goyal’s words, who launched the platform on September 11, the ‘futuristic’ initiative, particularly focusing on MSME exporters, will help India increase its market share in the world.
The single window initiative developed in collaboration with the Ministry of MSME, EXIM Bank, TCS, Department of Financial Services (DFS), and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), has brought almost everything related to exports under one umbrella.
Beginning with the certificate of origin (CoO), which certifies that goods in a shipment are wholly obtained, produced, manufactured, or processed in a particular country, the portal enables exporters to apply for it and add amount to their CoO wallet.
The portal also provides information about global demand, international standards, foreign buyer information and opportunities for the product such as required certifications for exporting to different countries, export risks, export-import statistics to analyse market trends, buyer details, new market discovery, tariff barriers.
Exporters can also discover worldwide trade events, explore free trade agreements, and connect with international trade experts for queries. These experts include over 180 officials from Indian missions abroad along with officials from more than 600 export promotion councils and industry experts.
The portal also houses information on Indian exporters to source from India.
According to the data available on the new portal, it already has nearly 12 lakh registered users and has issued over 872 CoO, at the time of filing this report.
Goyal said the platform will help in creating partnerships and synergies as it can be connected with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal for the suppliers to get access to wider markets and be more competitive.
As the platform evolves with iteration, its 2.0 version will be launched in Hindi and other official languages in 2025, taking user feedback, according to Goyal.
According to the Economic Survey 2023-24, India’s market share in global exports of goods was 1.8 per cent in FY24, against an average of 1.7 per cent during FY16- FY20. On the other hand, share in global services exports stood at 4.9 per cent in FY24 with growth largely driven by IT/software services and other business services.
The launch of Trade Connect e-Platform focusing on MSMEs gains significance as the share of export of MSME-specified products in all India exports see recovery.
Importantly, the government has also extended the interest equalisation scheme (IES) for pre and post-shipment rupee export credit for a month till September 30. The extension is applicable to MSME manufacturing exporters only.
According to the government data, MSME exports in FY24 recovered to 45.73 per cent after dropping from 49.73 per cent in FY20 to 49.35 per cent in FY21, 45.03 per cent in FY22 and 43.59 per cent in FY23. As of May 2024, the share was 45.79 per cent.