Blitz India Business
NEW DELHI: India’s total exports came to a record $863.1 billion in FY26. Merchandise accounted for $441.8 billion, services for $421.3 billion. Put those two beside each other and the composition is the story: India is arriving at something very few large economies have — two export engines of near-equal weight.
That matters commercially, not just statistically. Goods and services cycles do not turn together. A machine-tool order book and a software services contract respond to different signals, in different currencies, on different lead times. An economy earning nearly half its export dollars from services is materially less exposed to a freight shock, a tariff round or a commodity swing than one earning four-fifths from goods.
Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal. Photo: Press Information Bureau, Government of India (GODL-India), via Wikimedia Commons.
Two export engines of near-equal weight. That is a balance-sheet property, not a talking point.
At a Glance
• Total exports, FY26 $863.1 billion — record
• Merchandise $441.8 billion
• Services $421.3 billion
• Services share ~48.8 per cent of total exports
• India–Oman CEPA In force 1 June 2026
The free trade agreements are the mechanism meant to widen this further, and the first corridor data is already in. Under the India–Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, in force from 1 June 2026, exports to Oman reached $622.8 million in June — up 54.7 per cent month on month and 189.6 per cent year on year. A single month off a small base overstates the trend; it does not invent it. Demand of that size does not appear in thirty days unless it was already queued behind a tariff line.
For an exporter reading this, the lines to watch over the next two quarters are the labour-intensive ones — textiles, gems and jewellery, leather, marine products. Those are where a duty concession converts into order volume and headcount rather than only into margin. The India–UK CETA and the concluded India–EU FTA are the next two tests of the same proposition.