Exim Bank to promote exports of products, services from creative industry

Exim Bank has been striving to promote exports of products and services from the creative industry, through capacity building and skill development.

Elaborating on its efforts, the bank’s Chairman and Managing Director T.C.A. Ranganathan said the key role of Exim is to identify areas with export potential.

He spoke to Business Line on the sidelines of the World Crafts Council Summit 2012, Kaivalam. The bank has sponsored the craft film contest to be screened during the event.

One such segment that the bank identified is the creative industry, which comprises areas such as the visual arts, craft, publishing, audio visual, design and new media. According to him, the size of the global trade in creative goods and services was over $380 billion in 2010. And, it is growing at an average annual rate of 8.3 per cent.

India’s export basket of arts and crafts includes carpets, paintings, yarn, celebration items, glassware and paperware.

He said India is the eighth largest exporter of creative goods in the world. However, at $13.8 billion, it accounts for only 3.6 per cent, as against China’s ($97.8 billion) 25.5 per cent. It is very marginal and hence efforts need to be made to increase share.

Exim Bank, he said, steps in to create an enabling environment for rural micro enterprises to explore newer geographies. It conducts workshops for craftsmen and artisans to improve their creativity, fund them to increase capacity and help them identify the buyer market.

As the industry is a highly labour-intensive, cottage-based industry and is not structured, the bank has identified various NGOs and works with them. “These workshops, besides giving ideas to be more innovative, helps cross-fertilisation of ideas,” he elaborated.

Ranganathan says lack of awareness and training on various issues and craftsmen’s inability to extract premium prices for these products on the USP of being ‘hand crafted’ is a major drawback.

For example, he said packaging skills need to be improved. Citing how Japanese or Korean products are sold at least 10 times higher prices than comparable Indian handicraft products just with their superior packaging, he said good packaging will make the product more presentable.

“We work with a number of NGOs in the pursuit of enhancing artistic excellence and income. We try to marry them with people from the design and packaging industry to make their products more exportable,” he said.

For example, he said the bank extended its support to URAVU in the Waynad district of Kerala, which promotes enterprises based on value addition of local and natural resources, especially bamboo. Exim Bank has also facilitated a West Bengal-based NGO for upgrading and modernising its existing unit producing various types of handicrafts based on natural fibres.

It also helped an enterprise employing women from BPL families for manufacturing off-the-loom tasar silk products in Bhagalpur, Bihar.

Going forward, Ranganathan said the bank is committed to facilitate the linkage between rural grassroots enterprises and corporates with overseas buyers and agencies.

>vinay.kamath@thehindu.co.in

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