Piyush Goyal Announces Export Growth Plan at LEAPS 2025 Awards

To achieve the most ambitious target of $1 trillion export target of India, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced the roadmap while releasing the LEADS 2025 report. He also honored the logistics leaders at the LEAPS 2025 awards in New Delhi.

India Sets Ambitious $1 Trillion Export Target

India has set the ambitious export target of $1 trillion for the current financial year after a record $863 billion in exports in FY 2025-26.

This milestone came despite the major global disruptions including the,

• West Asia geopolitical tensions
• The ongoing Ukraine conflict
• Slower global economic growth
• Trade uncertainty and tariff pressures

According to the Commerce Ministry the services exports grew around the 8.5%-9% while overall exports increased nearly to 5% year on year.

India’s Free Trade Agreements Now Coverage

Piyush Goyal also said India has covered total 38 developed and prosperous economies via nine FTAs over the past 3.5 years.

Out of these total 4 FTAs are already operational and 5 more are expected to become active within the 12 months.

Combined with earlier trade agreements involving the Japan, South Korea and ASEAN nations and India’s trade agreements now cover more than two thirds of global trade and economies.

Trade Talks Underway with Major Global Regions

The government is also actively negotiating trade agreements with the several countries and regional blocs.

Key ongoing discussions includes the,

• GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)
• Canada
• Chile
• Mexico
• Eurasia
• Mercosur
• SACU
• Maldives

The GCC deal is specially important because it would deepen the trade engagement with six Gulf nations which includes the Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE.

Why Logistics Is Becoming Central to India’s Growth Story

India has long struggled with relatively high logistics costs which compared to major export economies.

Reducing logistics costs improves the,

• Export competitiveness
• Business efficiency
• Delivery speed
• Supply chain reliability
• Global investor confidence

The government says the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s PM GatiShakti mission and the National Logistics Policy are helping to transform the logistics ecosystem.

LEADS 2025 Report: Top Logistics Performers Among States and UTs

The LEADS (Logistics Ease Across Different States) report is the India’s major logistics benchmarking exercise.

This year’s framework uses the stronger evidence based methodology with 59% weightage to objective indicators.

Also new four-tier classification has replaced the older three-tier model.

Exemplars: Top Logistics Performers

The highest-performing states and UTs includes the,

• Coastal State: Tamil Nadu
• Landlocked State: Uttar Pradesh
• North-Eastern State: Mizoram
• Union Territory: Delhi Delhi

These regions were recognized for the strong infrastructure, policy support, logistics services and regulatory efficiency.

High Performers

Strong-performing states includes,

• Gujarat
• Kerala
• Maharashtra
• Haryana
• Telangana
• Chhattisgarh
• Bihar

Among Union Territories,

• Jammu & Kashmir
• Puducherry

LEAPS 2025 Awards Celebrate Logistics Excellence

The LEAPS (Logistics Excellence, Advancement and Performance Shield) awards recognized top logistics organizations across 13 categories.

Some notable winners included are,

• FedEx Express – Air Freight
• MSC Agency India – Maritime Freight
• Safexpress – Road Freight
• DP World Rail Logistics – Rail Freight
• Delhivery – E-commerce logistics
• IIM Mumbai – Logistics education
• MatchLog Solutions – Logistics startup innovation