Export Promotion Mission

Export Promotion Mission is part of a roadmap to transform India into a developed economy, and boosting exports is a central pillar of sustainable and inclusive growth. Read here to learn more.

India stands at a critical juncture in its journey toward becoming a global economic powerhouse.

In this direction, the Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister, has approved the Export Promotion Mission (EPM), with a financial outlay of ₹25,060 crore for the period 2025-26 to 2030-31.

The mission represents a comprehensive, technology-driven reform in India’s trade facilitation architecture, designed to consolidate fragmented schemes, reduce export barriers, and strengthen the competitiveness of Indian industries in global markets.

Beyond its immediate economic targets, the EPM aims to position India as a trusted, resilient, and innovation-led trading nation for the decades to come.

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Why a Unified Export Promotion Mission?

Over the past decade, India’s exports have seen substantial growth, from $314 billion in 2013-14 to over $778 billion in 2023-24 (goods and services combined).

This growth has been uneven, constrained by global trade headwinds, logistical inefficiencies, financing bottlenecks, and sectoral vulnerabilities.
Multiple overlapping export promotion schemes, such as the Interest Equalisation Scheme (IES) and the Market Access Initiative (MAI), have operated in silos, often leading to duplication and administrative delays.
Moreover, global competition from countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico has intensified, particularly in labour-intensive sectors.
The Export Promotion Mission (EPM) seeks to address these structural challenges through a unified, outcome-oriented framework, ensuring coherence across policy, finance, and technology.

Objectives of the Mission

The EPM’s overarching goal is to boost India’s exports through coordinated financial and non-financial interventions, ensuring regional and sectoral inclusivity. Specifically, it aims to:

Enhance access to affordable trade finance for exporters, particularly MSMEs.
Improve export readiness and product quality, aligning with international standards and certifications.
Strengthen India’s global brand presence through market development, trade fairs, and branding initiatives.
Enable digital transformation of export facilitation through an integrated DGFT platform.
Support employment generation and value chain development in key manufacturing and logistics sectors.

Institutional and Implementation Framework

Implementation: Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in close coordination with the Export Promotion Councils (EPCs), state governments, and financial institutions.

Its implementation period spans FY 2025-26 to FY 2030-31, with a total financial outlay of ₹25,060 crore.
Importantly, the mission adopts a performance-linked and data-driven approach, with periodic impact assessments to track outcomes such as export growth, job creation, and MSME participation.

Key Components of the Export Promotion Mission

Niryat Protsahan: Financial Empowerment for Exporters

This sub-scheme focuses on financial interventions to strengthen exporters’ liquidity and credit access.
Key measures include:

Interest Subvention: Continuation and expansion of the Interest Equalisation Scheme, providing subsidized interest rates for pre- and post-shipment credit to exporters, especially MSMEs.
Export Factoring and Insurance: Promotion of export factoring services to ease working capital constraints, coupled with enhanced credit guarantee coverage for exporters through institutions like ECGC Ltd.
Green and Digital Export Finance: Incentives for exporters adopting sustainable production processes or investing in digital trade infrastructure.

By improving access to low-cost trade finance, Niryat Protsahan aims to reduce the cost of capital and mitigate payment risks, allowing Indian exporters to compete more effectively in international markets.

Niryat Disha: Building Capabilities and Market Access

The second sub-scheme, Niryat Disha, addresses the non-financial dimensions of competitiveness, focusing on quality, branding, logistics, and market development.
Key initiatives include:

Export Quality Enhancement: Assistance to industries for obtaining international certifications (ISO, HACCP, BRC, etc.), product testing, and compliance with environmental and social standards.
Brand India Campaign: Strengthening India’s identity as a reliable global supplier through country-specific branding, trade fairs, and digital marketing campaigns.
Export Infrastructure and Logistics: Support for warehousing, cold chain, and port connectivity under the PM Gati Shakti framework.
Capacity Building: Training exporters, particularly MSMEs and women entrepreneurs, through e-learning modules and export facilitation centers.

By merging quality, innovation, and visibility, Niryat Disha will help Indian products move up the global value chain, from commodity exports to value-added and high-tech goods.

Digital and Governance Components

A defining feature of the EPM is its technology-driven implementation.

All applications, approvals, and fund disbursals will be routed through a DGFT-integrated digital platform, linked with systems such as ICEGATE, Customs, RBI, and GSTN.

This digital interface will:

Ensure end-to-end paperless processing of export incentives and compliance documents.
Enable real-time performance monitoring through dashboards and analytics.
Reduce administrative delays and improve transparency in scheme delivery.

The mission also proposes the creation of an Export Data Intelligence Unit (EDIU) for data-driven policy formulation, using predictive analytics to identify emerging market opportunities and risks.

Sectoral and Regional Focus

EPM prioritizes sectors that face intense global competition and supply chain vulnerabilities, including:

In addition, the mission emphasizes balanced regional growth, promoting export clusters in Tier-II and Tier-III cities, and integrating district-level export hubs under the One District, One Product (ODOP) initiative.

This localized approach aligns with the Districts as Export Hubs (DEH) framework, enabling grassroots producers and artisans to access global markets.

Expected Outcomes

By 2030-31, the Export Promotion Mission aims to deliver tangible and measurable results:

Significant growth in merchandise exports, contributing to India’s target of $2 trillion in exports by 2030.
Enhanced access to trade finance, particularly for small exporters and MSMEs.
Improved global competitiveness through better compliance, branding, and logistics.
Job creation across the manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics sectors.
Regional diversification of exports, reducing dependence on a few states or ports.

In the long run, the EPM will serve as the institutional foundation for a resilient, diversified, and innovation-driven export economy.

Strategic Significance

The launch of EPM comes at a time when the global trade landscape is witnessing rapid transformation, from geo-economic realignments to the reshoring of supply chains and sustainability-linked trade policies.

India’s proactive stance in launching a mission-mode program reflects a recognition that export growth must be strategic, technology-enabled, and inclusive.
It also complements India’s participation in emerging global frameworks like the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and Global Biofuels Alliance, which emphasize trade resilience and green transition.
By embedding sustainability, inclusivity, and digital governance into its export policy, the EPM aligns with global best practices and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure).

Conclusion

The Export Promotion Mission represents more than just another trade policy initiative; it is a strategic economic transformation blueprint. By unifying financial incentives, digital reforms, and market development strategies, EPM aims to unlock the next stage of India’s export-led growth.

As the global economy pivots toward resilience and green competitiveness, India’s export ecosystem must adapt with agility and vision. The EPM’s emphasis on innovation, inclusivity, and institutional coordination marks a decisive step in that direction.

With sustained implementation and stakeholder participation, this mission could well become the cornerstone of India’s emergence as a top-five exporting nation by 2030.

Read: Export Diversification: India’s strategy for a resilient global trade