The Hindu Business Line : Sharma sees positive export growth in last quarter

Exuding optimism: The Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Anand Sharma, and the Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Mr Ajay Shankar, at the Economic Editors' Conference in the Capital on Wednesday.

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New Delhi, Nov 4 Even as the country’s export growth has been declining for the twelfth month in a row till September, the Government is confident of seeing a turnaround in the last quarter (January-March) of the current fiscal.

“We are on the way to recovery. In the final quarter of this fiscal, we will see positive growth,” the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, said while addressing theEconomic Editors Conference here.

The Minister contended that “we will be able to achieve the target of doubling India’s exports of goods and services by 2014 and also doubling our share in global exports by 2020”.

Survey soon

Mr Sharma said his Ministry would carry out a survey to ascertain the effectiveness of the various stimulus measures provided to exporters and extend additional assistance, wherever warranted.

He said his Ministry would review the performance of various sectors by the middle of this month and might unveil some specific packages. He further said a package for small coffee growers is on cards and this would be announced after the Cabinet approval.

FDI flows

Turning to the investment scenario, Mr Sharma said, “it is a measure of confidence that the foreign investors have demonstrated in India’s economy that foreign direct investment (FDI) has shown a positive trend this year and so have been the flows from foreign institutional investors which amounted to $15 billion this year so far.

“In the first seven months of the current fiscal, we received FDI inflows of $15.3 billion and the cumulative FDI inflows have crossed the $120-billion mark,” he added.

An official from the Ministry later said the country attracted FDI worth $1.5 billion in September, 2009, which is 40 per cent down from a year earlier.

In response to a query on the controversial Press Note 2,3 & 4 governing FDI, particularly on downstream investment, transfer of ownership and “owned or controlled by non-resident entities”, the Minister clarified that “we are in talks with RBI to leave out the banking industry from its purview”.