The Hindu Business Line : `Proactive, but penumbral'

Mr S.K. Saraf, Vice-President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), said that the documents provided a detailed analysis of thrust commodities and markets where the country can contribute a lot in attaining higher growth in exports with the aim of achieving one per cent share in global trade by 2007.

However, he added that this could be possible only if all the economic Ministries, State Governments and departments/agencies concerning trade came forward with an objective to treat exports as a national priority and acted in an exporter-friendly manner.

Mr R.S. Lodha, President, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), said the envisaged one per cent share in world trade by 2007 would remain unaccomplished if the proposed measures to enhance cost competitiveness failed to resolve the disadvantage in the form of high transaction cost, high cost of power, finance, poor infrastructure and archaic labour laws.

Though an action committee was being set up the monitor the implementation of the medium term export strategy, the acid test would be its effectiveness in resolving the inter-Ministerial macro issues and those pertaining to greater involvement of States in boosting exports.

The President of Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), Mr K.K. Nohria, said: "The policy is a re-statement of the strategy outlined in the Exim policy last year. Unless the infrastructure bottlenecks are removed and the policy is implemented speedily, the target of one per cent share of world trade will be difficult to achieve.''

He added that though the policy set up an institutional mechanism for monitoring the implementation strategy, it did not spell out the quantum of resources and a time-bound framework to remove barriers to achieve the growth target of 11.9 per cent.

The Assocham also regretted that the policy made no mention of easy availability of pre- and post-shipment export credit and lowering of interest to five per cent, as is available to exporters in the neighbouring Asian countries.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has particularly lauded the detailed approach taken by the Ministry of Commerce in identifying the 220 focussed products at the four-digit level with significant potential for export growth.

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