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The Government will bring out within a week a ‘strategy paper' to help the country achieve an export target of $500 billion by 2014-15 and with a special focus on measures to increase shipments from the engineering, pharmaceuticals and chemicals sectors.
“The strategy paper is ready and will be released in a week. The (export) target has been revised upwards from the earlier $400 billion to $500 billion by 2014-15 at a growth rate of 27-28 per cent,” the Union Commerce Secretary, Dr Rahul Khullar, told reporters here on Saturday.
ENGINEERING EXPORTS
Expressing confidence that engineering exports in 2010-11 will touch $50-55 billion, Dr Khullar said: “Five years from now, India's engineering exports should be $150 billion. That will create more jobs and help India move up the value chain.”
He said that the other sectors that will help the country in diversifying the manufacturing base and in climbing up the value chain are pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
“Five years from now, you will be talking about high-value exports from these sectors than about onions and mangoes, though it is important to keep the exports of mangoes and spices going. But we should have a sense of balance as to what is more important for the economy and future employment creation ten years from now,” he said.
Though certain segments such as small cars in the engineering sector have done well, others, especially a large number of units located in the eastern region, are not doing well, Dr Khullar said.
INCENTIVES
Therefore, more incentives were given to those segments in the engineering sector in the list of incentives announced on Friday, he added.
“If the incentives enable them to get market space overseas, what is wrong with it? The quicker we convert ourselves into a high value-end manufacturing base with engineering as a core focus, it is a good thing for India. Don't look at today, but look at five years from now. There may have been a time a decade ago when all you were exporting were manhole covers. But today that is not the scene,” Dr Khullar said.
He said engineering exports are also diversifying into new markets such as Colombia in Latin America.
“The Vice-Minister of Commerce from Colombia met me as there was an engineering fair in that country recently. He told me Colombia had the option of choosing (engineering) items from China or India. The Chinese option was cheaper but poorer quality. They decided to buy Indian goods,” Dr Khullar said.
Referring to a 32 per cent increase in iron and steel imports, he said these imports are being converted to engineering items and exported.
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