The Hindu Business Line : Ministry calls meet to fix export targets

THE Commerce Secretary, Mr Dipak Chatterjee, has convened a meeting of the chiefs of various export promotion councils and commodity boards on June 15, to determine the export target for the current fiscal, after obtaining their inputs and undertaking a review of the potentials to scale the target.

Sources in the Government told Business Line here that normally the meeting of the Commerce Secretary with the chiefs of export promotion councils and commodity boards would be held in the second week of May when the economy is in the midst of the first quarter of the fiscal year.

Because of the general election and the delay in the formation of the Government, the Ministry had to postpone the routine meeting as the priorities of the new Government were also not being made clear then.

With the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government led by Dr Manmohan Singh in place and Mr Kamal Nath as the Minister of Commerce and Industry, the bureaucracy has no excuse for determining the export target for the current fiscal as the first quarter of the current fiscal would be over in less than three weeks.

In the last fiscal, the country's exports exceeded all expectations as against the target of 12 per cent in dollar terms, exports reached a stupendous $61.8 billion by notching up a growth of 17.26 per cent.

While it is too early to predict an encore of this performance this fiscal too, officials in the Commerce Ministry are quite optimistic over the prospects with the recovery in industrial countries being forecast by international organisations such as the OECD and IMF.

The sources said that while the merchandise export target for the fiscal 2004-05 would be fixed on June 15, the Ministry has also convened a meeting of the services exporters organisation on June 16 to ascertain the potentials of export of services such as software, hospitality industry, healthcare and construction industry.

Last year too, the Commerce Ministry had undertaken a two-part target-setting meeting for both merchandise goods and services exports especially in view of the fact that the country has emerged as a major services exporter.

Besides the Commerce Secretary, who will chair the meeting of the chiefs of export promotion councils and commodity boards and also service exporters on these two days, senior officials and the Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Dr H.A.C. Prasad, would be present to take note of the presentations being made by these councils, the sources added.

With exporters having a harrowing tale to recount in the form of relentless appreciation of the rupee vis-à-vis the dollar which threaten to eat away their export margins and other constraints such as delay in ports, airports and Customs clearance of cargo adding to their overall transaction cost, the Ministry officials have to take due note of the underlying problems plaguing the export front, trade sources said.