Nirmala Sitharaman to meet export promotion councils to promote country’s exports

Amid mounting concern of falling exports, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has convened a meeting of export promotion councils on February 02, to discuss reasons for the decline in exports and ways to promote India's exports, which have remained in the negative zone since December 2014. It is a part of an exercise to assess the country's trade trends in this financial year and the interventions needed to strengthen overseas shipments.

In the meeting, the exports councils will raise matters related to timely refund of tax claims and more support in the forthcoming Budget. They are going to raise the issue of affordable credit to exporters. Besides, the council will also ask the government to create Rs 100 crore market development fund particularly for MSME sector.

The minister is scheduled to first meet representatives of 13 export promotion councils, including those from the engineering, pharmaceutical, cotton textile, leather and chemical sectors. Officials from the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority and the Marine Products Export Development Authority will also attend the meeting. Further, the minister plans to meet all 40-odd export promotion councils over time but in smaller groups so as to give sufficient time to their concerns.

Reflecting the sluggish global demand, India's merchandise exports contracted for the thirteenth consecutive month in December 2015, registering 14.75% decline over last year. The cumulative exports during the April-December period declined by 18.06 per cent to $196.6 billion. The Commerce Ministry is doing several consultations with industry and state representatives in order to find ways to enhance the outbound shipments.