Government plans weekly system to track EXIM trends

New Delhi: The government will create a monitoring mechanism to track export-import trends and sectoral stress weekly indicators amid concerns that supply chain disruptions, logistics constraints, and rising input costs due to the geopolitical tensions sparked by the Iran war could impact domestic industries.

The commerce and industry ministry said in a statement on Friday that the customs department has agreed to examine specific cases relating to destuffing or unloading cargo from a ship to further streamline procedures with regard to hazardous consignment.

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The issues were discussed at two separate meetings on March 9 on the concerns and challenges of the exporting community due to the rising cost of packaging material and disruptions in vessel movement in international waters, especially to West Asia.

The meetings, chaired by commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal, focused on challenges arising from disruptions in packaging materials and associated inputs.

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"Sectoral inputs highlighted that stress in supply chains, logistics constraints and rising input costs can impact industries such as apparel, leather, telecom/optical fibre and medical devices," the ministry said on the meeting with the packaging industry.

Industry participants highlighted the increase in prices of critical inputs, placing particular stress on MSMEs. They flagged need for support in terms of continued availability of critical inputs such as LNG, helium and petrochemical derivatives.