Punjab Export Conclave 2022 organized by FIEO at Ludhiana

Ludhiana, March 29, 2022: Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) organized Export Conclave 2022 at Ludhiana, with a theme “Enhancing Punjab’s Export Share” on Monday evening.  Suvidh Shah, ITS ,Joint Director General Of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Ludhiana , Virendra Pal Singh , Regional Head, Export Import Bank (EXIM)  of India along with Bal Mukand, Head Ludhiana, ECGC Ltd India joined the session as experts, interacted and share their views with the participated delegates.

While presenting his Welcome addresses,  Ashwani Kumar, Northern Regional Chairman, FIEO said that “Exports play a critical role in the economic growth of any country. India's overall exports are doing really well and the future looks promising. The Government of India has also actively undertaken Policy Reforms, with an aim to become a USD 5 trillion economy in the near future”. He also added that, “India reaching a new milestone of US$ 400 Bn of merchandise exports in the current financial year, a lot of credit for achieving this magical mark must be given to  vision and belief Hon'ble Prime Minister. The support provided by the Government of India through various measures contributed to great extent to achieve this figure. What is remarkable in this year's exports is across sectors growth exhibited by both the employment-intensive and sunrise sectors of exports. These figures also reflect that exports have become more inclusive with participation of craftsmen, artisans, farmers, fishermen, women entrepreneurs and small businesses”.

While addressing the delegates, S C Ralhan, Past President, FIEO said that, “Crossing US$ 400 Bn is a great achievement, despite huge logistics challenges including container shortage, sky rocketing freight and liquidity constraints. Another US$ 40-45 Bn will be added by the services exports later this year. Thus over 50% of the incremental growth in GDP this fiscal will be contributed by the exports sector. Exports are now set to transform the Indian economy. However, for Punjab state, its contribution toward India’s exports stands only at around (only) 4 %.  To improve its contribution further, the MSME’s in Punjab need to be more innovative, research oriented, exploring new markets and the State Government should also support MSME’s by offering support and export oriented policies or schemes, encouraging them to do well”.

During his address  Suvidh Shah, Joint DGFT Ludhiana mentioned that the “One District One Product (ODOP) is Government of India’s important  initiative, this is  a policy to transform every district into an export hub, for State like Punjab this could well be  an instrument of uniform economic development across the state and then toward the country.  This Policy is with a vision that  every region in India has traditional products and technologies which can be  promoted for export.  The Indian economy is the fifth largest economy in the world, with a share of close to 8 percent in the global Gross Domestic Product. However, its share in the global exports is disproportionately low at less than 2 percent; ODOP could well be an answer to increase its global export share from a state like Punjab. Export growth in India has historically been a centralized process. This new approach of encouraging districts to become the export hubs not only decentralizes the planning process, but also puts at its center the most valuable stakeholders, i.e. the local producers and manufacturers.
 
Virendra Pal Singh, Regional Head, Export Import Bank (EXIM) and  Bal Mukand, Head Ludhiana, ECGC Ltd shared their observations on how the state exports can be enhanced and also various kind of supports and offerings which  both EXIM Bank and ECGC offers to the exports fraternity.

The session was attended by more than 100 delegates representing various prominent export houses across the state.