26 export promotion councils to discuss export fall with commerce secretary on Wednesday

By Kirtika Suneja

NEW DELHI: Exporters from 26 different industry sectors will meet commerce secretary Rita Teaotia on October 7 to discuss issues relating to decline in export of various commodities from the country.

The meeting to be chaired by Teaotia, will have executive directors and chairpersons of all export promotion councils along with representatives of the Federation of Indian Exports Organization.

“We expect all sectors ranging from apparel, cashew, electrons, sports, and gems and jewelry, among others to raise their concerns in the meeting,” said an official.

The meeting has been convened in the wake of exports declining 16.17% year on year in the first five months of the current fiscal, impacting the country's industrial growth as well as employment in a number of sectors.

Also, estimates suggest that exports in 2015-16 might be lower than shipments worth $310 billion, or about Rs 20 lakh crore, achieved in the previous fiscal. In fact, commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Teaotia met finance ministry officials recently to seek fast-tracking of the interest subvention scheme, which is likely to be considered by the Union Cabinet this week.

However, only interest subvention might not be enough, experts say.

"Global trade is down. Some of it is due to lower prices example in sectors like chemicals, while other parts are volume related because of lower demand. Interest subventions will partially compensate for currency related competitiveness lost, but will have to be supplemented by actions depending on specifics of each sector", said Saugata Bhattacharya, chief economist at Axis Bank.

This is what is expected to come out from the meeting scheduled for Wednesday as according to an official, there is also a demand for reduction in transaction costs and increase in duty drawbacks for steel sector which has seen two duty hikes this year.