Govt confident of meeting export target

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday expressed confidence that the country will achieve the export target of $200 billion for the current fiscal, despite global economic crisis.

"I am still confident we will able to meet the target," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said, however adding that the global financial turmoil may impact exports.

"Global economic gloom may have an impact (on export target) which we will see how it rolls out in the next two months," Nath said.

The government has set an export targets of 200 billion dollars for this fiscal, up from 160 billion dollars last year.

Concerned over a sharp decline in export growth to 10 per cent in September from about 27 per cent in August this year, the Ministry has already started working on a relief package for exporters.

"We are in discussion with exporters to see how we can sustain our export growth," Nath said.

Exports have taken a beating after the economic crisis emerged from the US which subsequently spread to other parts of the globe.

In the first five months of 2008-09, exports posted a growth of 35.1 per cent and stood at 81.22 billion dollars, against 60.10 billion achieved in the same period a year ago.