Commerce Ministry wants export credit included in priority sector lending

30 Aug 2013 Evaluate

In a bid to boost the country’s exports, the Commerce Ministry has asked the Finance Ministry to include export credit in priority sector lending of all banks, to boost overseas sales as the flow of credit to the export sector is declining. During FY08 to FY13, the share of export credit in total credit witnessed a sharp decline of 8 percent and has come down to 11.36 percent from 19.82 percent.

The broad categories of priority sector include Agriculture, Small Scale Industries, Small Business / Service Enterprises, Micro Credit, Education loans and Housing loans. Presently, only foreign banks are required to disburse 12 percent of their credit to export companies under the priority sector, while, for other banks export finance is outside the required 40 percent priority sector lending.

In July, country's merchandise exports grew 11.6 percent, however, overseas shipments from major sectors such as engineering and textiles were still in the negative zone. In the previous fiscal, Indian exports declined by 1.76% to $300.6 billion which were the first ever decline since 2009-10. Slowing growth in exports and increasing imports are putting pressure on the current account deficit (CAD), which widened to a record high of 4.8 percent of GDP in the previous fiscal. However, the government is making all efforts to boost country’s export and has recently announced a slew of measures including sops for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and extension of the popular EPCG scheme to all sectors to boost shipments.

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