India’s Growth Story remains intact as one of fastest growing economies: President FIEO 

Growing and diversifying merchandise trade itself says it all about the India’s growth story, which continues to remain intact year after year as one of the fastest growing economies, said Dr A Sakthivel, President, FIEO. Though merchandise exports have seen some decline during the recent months mainly due to slowdown in the global growth process, rising inflation, volatility in currencies and continuous change in geo-political scenario, India has more so remained stable and resilient with its exports showing positive trends barring few sectors, added FIEO President. Over 8.5% growth in the current fiscal so far is reasonable against the back drop of global headwinds and contracting global trade. FIEO President is also of the view that though the coming months are going to be little challenging unless both global economic growth and geopolitical situation improves drastically, however we will be on course to cross the previous year’s goods export target quite easily touching almost USD 435-445 billion with a growth of over 3-5 percent this fiscal.   
 
Dr Sakthivel added that FIEO in its continuous endeavour to handhold and mentor the exporting community thereby promoting India’s exports is celebrating its 58th Foundation Day on February 19, 2023. The Celebrations will start with several key Capacity Building Programmes organised across the country under One District One Product and District as Export Hub initiative of the Ministry of Commerce and industry, Government of India. Earlier, the Federation has successfully conducted over 100 such Capacity Building Programmes on a pan India basis during the last one year promoting more and more handholding and mentoring of exporters through training and skill development, thereby giving further boost to our exports. Over 1000 new exporters joined the mainstream foreign trade sector through such training programmes in districts across the country exporting goods worth over Rs 1500 Cr in a short span. The culmination of the three weeks-long events will be by showcasing “Make in India” through the event titled SOURCEX INDIA (March 9-11, 2023) at New Delhi further promoting Brand India across the Globe.    
 
SOURCEX INDIA 2023 (Reverse Buyer Seller Meet - RBSM) will be India’s first Global Market Place for promoting Make in India brands to go global, covering both food & non-food Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) as well as Services. The RBSM will help India companies to launch successful Indian brands to international markets. Besides, SOURCEX INDIA will also showcase India’s select services, which have the potential to be franchised overseas. Further, it would also be highlighting our major focus sectors including Food, Pharma & Ayurveda, Handicrafts, Handloom, FMCG & FMCD, Gifts, Textiles and Allied Commodities. Over 250 buyers from across 35 countries and 7 regions representing supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail chains, importers and buying houses have already shown their interest and expected to participate in this mega event, reiterated Dr Sakthivel.   
 
FIEO President also added that during the last 10 months, FIEO has represented India in 39 International shows (36 Physical and 3 Virtual) in various new & emerging markets including Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Portugal, Bangladesh, Japan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Poland, Romania and Cuba etc. through participation in International Expos in the respective countries. Besides, the Federation also organised “Best of India Expo” at Dhaka, Bangladesh as a nodal agency of Department of Commerce and organised the first-ever business delegation to Philippines; International Conference on MSMEs with Speakers from Oman & Nepal and a B2B Meet with incoming 47-member business delegation from Tanzania.  
 
The Federation also conducted an analysis for identifying a list of probable 75 textile districts having the potential to be developed like the Tirupur textile cluster. Further FIEO's Business Incubation Centre provides handholding support to the new entrepreneurs starting from selecting right product, identify the country to export, connecting with bankers, identify suppliers and helping them in logistics and documentation. The Centre gives right environment to have focused and conscious effort for export business and has turned over 500 new entrepreneurs into new MSME exporters doing exports worth of over Rs 2500 Cr. Besides, the Federation also provided support on a variety of issues relating to market access, standards, safety and regulations in overseas markets, opined President, FIEO.