Government is working on an ambitious plan to double India’s merchandise exports to USD 400 billion in the next three years, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said on Tuesday.

“That exercise has started off. Hopefully in two months, I would come out with a strategy paper which will say exactly how we intend to go from USD 200 billion to USD 400 billion in the next three years from now,” he said.

Khullar was speaking to reporters in New Delhi after releasing a study on promoting India’s engineering exports

He said ramping up exports was essential in the backdrop of fast rising trade gap.

The export-import deficit gap this fiscal is expected to go up to USD 125 billion.

“If the balance of trade is going to hit over USD 125 billion, that is roughly 10 per cent of the GDP and that’s huge balance of trade deficit,” he said expressing concern over it.

Khullar said engineering exports which contribute 22 per cent of the country’s shipments, will have to play a major role to boost the total numbers.

“The share of these guys (engineering exporters) will have to go from USD 45 billion to USD 90 billion,” Khullar said.

He said besides engineering, the major contributors to achieving the USD 400 billion target would be pharmaceuticals and chemicals.

Indian exports for April-October aggregated USD 121.4 billion and are likely to touch USD 200 billion by end of this fiscal.

Commerce Minister Anand Sharma had also said that the country’s exports are expected to double by 2014.