India’s export engine runs on people who were never given software

India exported a record US$824.96 billion of goods and services in 2024–25, with merchandise alone at US$437.42 billion. That headline hides who actually does the work. By the government’s own figure, micro, small and medium enterprises accounted for 48.55 per cent of merchandise exports that year.

I have spent the last year inside those enterprises — sports-goods units in Jalandhar, textile houses in Ludhiana, family businesses that have exported since the 1960s. They make world-class product. What they do not have is a system.

Where the time actually goes

An enquiry arrives on WhatsApp. A price is worked out on paper. The HS code is copied from the last shipment because nobody wants to re-check it. A broker vouches for a buyer the exporter has never met. Weeks pass between ‘interested’ and a confirmed order, and most of that time is spent establishing trust, not making goods.

The bottleneck in Indian exports is not manufacturing. It is verification.

Every step a buyer cannot verify becomes a step a middleman can charge for. That is the real tax on small exporters, and it never appears on an invoice.

What software should do here

The answer is not another dashboard. It is a verified record that travels with the exporter: registrations, product classifications checked at HS level, export history and compliance status, assembled once and trusted by the buyer before the first call. That is the idea behind the Trade Passport we are building at HindTrade AI.

When verification moves from a broker’s reputation to a system, the cycle compresses from months to weeks, and the margin stays with the people who make the goods.