Product and process re-engineering rather than incentives to drive Indian Exports
Author(s): City Air NewsMr S C Ralhan. Ludhiana, May 15, 2015: Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) organised an interactive session of exporters with the Commerce Secretary, Mr Rajeev Kher; DGFT, Mr Pravir Kumar and other...
cityairnews
May 15, 2015 12:30
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Mr S C Ralhan.
Ludhiana, May 15, 2015: Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) organised an interactive session of exporters with the Commerce Secretary, Mr Rajeev Kher; DGFT, Mr Pravir Kumar and other senior officers from the government at Mumbai. Mr Rajeev Kher, Commerce Secretary, while addressing FIEO’s interactive session said that largely, the issues which were raised by the exporters focused on the incentives. He said that exports should be based on core strength rather than incentives which have to adhere to WTO discipline. Indian industry should do product and process re-engineering and revisit marketing strategy to increase exports rather than basing it on incentives. Commerce Secretary added that Interest subvention scheme for exports sector will be announced shortly and with a view to provide stability to the subvention regime, the same will be available for 3 years. Mr Kher urged the industry to utilize FTAs for competitive imports of inputs and intermediate goods. Referring to standards, Commerce Secretary said that adoption of standards will not only help in boosting exports but will also protect the consumers from sub-standard imports thereby facilitating domestic manufacturing.
Mr Pravir Kumar, DGFT observed that focus of the FTP was on ease of doing business and digitalization. He said that all the non fiscal issues were analyzed and around 85% of the suggestions received from FIEO and other organisations have been incorporated in the new Foreign Trade Policy/Procedure.
Earlier speaking at the FIEO-EEPC Joint Session, Mr S C Ralhan, President FIEO said that exports have been on a downward loop since December last year and during March 2015 it dipped deeper into the negative zone recording 21% decline which is the biggest fall in the past six years. The order booking position of Indian exporters is much worse now which may affect exports in next few months also, he observed. President FIEO said that if we analyze our export of top 50 commodities for 2014-15, nearly 30% commodities have witnessed a negative export growth in last fiscal which is alarming. Sectors like Plastics & Rubber which grew over 11% last year recorded a negative growth of 3.6%. Similarly, Agri & Allied products also recorded a negative growth of over 8% compared to marginal growth of 1% last year. Other sectors which grew marginally as compared to last year includes leather, marine products, paper etc. Mr Ralhan sought re-classification of countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and SAARC in Group B and Switzerland in Group A for MEIS benefit besides lowering of threshold limit for Status holders.
Date:
Friday, May 15, 2015
