New Delhi, May 22 (IANS) Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday co-chaired a meeting with Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterway, Sarbananda Sonowal, to directly engage with India’s exporters, importers and port authorities to facilitate the smoother flow of trade amid the disruption in ship movement and uncertainties in global markets due to the Middle East conflict.

“We are committed to ensuring coordinated, time-bound measures to address concerns and create opportunities to make Indian traders more competitive globally with a ‘Whole of the Government’ approach,” Goyal said.

“Our government has relentlessly worked to build a seamless, efficient, responsive and future-ready trade ecosystem to advance ease of doing business,” the minister added.

Meanwhile, India’s total exports of goods and services during April this year have recorded a 13.59 per cent growth to $80.80 billion, compared to the corresponding figure of $71.13 billion during April 2025, despite the uncertainties in global markets, according to figures compiled by the Commerce Ministry.

Merchandise exports during the month were $43.56 billion, as compared to $38.28 billion during April 2025, registering a robust growth of 13.78 per cent.

Non-petroleum exports during April were valued at $33.97 billion which represents an increase of 9.01 per cent compared to the corresponding figure of $31.16 billion during April 2025.

Major drivers of merchandise exports growth during the month include petroleum products, electronic goods, engineering goods, drugs and pharmaceuticals, meat, dairy and poultry products.

The export of petroleum products increased by 34.66 per cent from $7.12 billion in April 2025 to $9.59 billion in April this year.

Similarly, electronic goods exports increased by an impressive 40.31 per cent during the month to $5.18 billion from $3.69 billion in April last year.

Engineering goods exports increased by 8.76 per cent to $10.35 billion in April this year from $9.52 billion in the same month of the previous year.

Meat, dairy and poultry products exports also recorded a robust jump of 48.03 per cent to $0.55 billion during the month while drugs and pharmaceuticals exports increased by 7.12 per cent to $ 2.66 billion in April.

–IANS

sps/na