The Economic Survey 2007-08 says that around 70 per cent of the export target for the present year was achieved during April-December 2007, reaching a level of $111 billion.

The major drivers of export growth were petroleum products, engineering goods and gems and jewellery. The growth of engineering exports has been sustained by machinery and equipment, transport equipment and manufacturers of metals.

There was a revival of the gems and jewellery sector with export growth 20.4 per cent for April-September 2007, after a deceleration in 2006-2007.

India's merchandise exports and imports (in dollars, on customs basis) grew by 22.6 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively in 2006-07, recording the lowest gap between growth rate after 2002-03. Petroleum products (59.3 per cent) and engineering goods (38.1 per cent) were the fastest growing exports.

The perceptible increase in share of petroleum products in total export reflected India's enhanced refining capacity and higher POL prices. The rising share of engineering goods reflected improved competitiveness. The imports grew by 25.9 per cent during April-December 2007 due to non-POL imports growth of 31.9 per cent, implying strong industrial demand by the manufacturing sector and for export activity.

Trade with top-12 trading partners increased by over 11.2 per cent since 2001-02, to 53.8 per cent of total in 2006-07. The share of the United States, the largest trading partner, declined by 2.5 per cent to 9.8 per cent in 2006-07, while China became the second largest partner in 2006-07 with its share increasing by 5.2 percentage points over the decade.

China's trade share during April-October 2007 is even higher than that of the United States by Rs600 crore.

India's export of services grew by 32.1 per cent to $76.2 billion in 2006-07. Software, business, financial and communication services were the main drivers of growth. Commercial Services exports were almost 60 per cent of merchandise exports in 2006-07.

India has continued to favour multilateral trading arrangements, which are both transparent and fair to the developing economies.