Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India’s total exports reached a record $863.1 billion in FY26 — merchandise at $441.8 billion, services at $421.3 billion. The headline is the number. The story inside it is how nearly even those two halves have become, and how quickly the new trade agreements are showing up in monthly data.
Take one corridor. The India–Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement came into force on 1 June 2026. In June, exports to Oman rose to $622.8 million — up 54.7 per cent on the month and 189.6 per cent year on year. A single month is not a trend, and a low base flatters a percentage. But a jump of that size in the first month of an agreement tells you the demand was waiting for the tariff line to move.
Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal. Photo: Press Information Bureau, Government of India (GODL-India), via Wikimedia Commons.
Services at $421.3 billion against merchandise at $441.8 billion. India is now very nearly two export economies of equal weight.
At a Glance
• Total exports, FY26 $863.1 billion — a record
• Merchandise $441.8 billion
• Services $421.3 billion
• India–Oman CEPA In force 1 June 2026
• Oman, June 2026 $622.8 mn — up 54.7% m-o-m, 189.6% y-o-y
The near-parity between goods and services is the structural fact worth holding on to. Most large exporting economies lean heavily one way. India is arriving at a balance that gives it two distinct sources of foreign earnings, responding to different cycles — a machine tool order book and a software services contract do not turn down in the same quarter.
The agreements now in force or concluded — the India–UK CETA, the India–EU FTA, the Oman CEPA — are the mechanism by which that balance is meant to widen further. The figures to watch over the next two quarters are the labour-intensive lines: textiles, gems and jewellery, leather, marine products. Those are where a tariff cut converts into employment rather than only into margin.
