Working closely with FinMin to ease credit flow to export sector: Commerce Ministry

In a bid to boost outbound shipments, the commerce ministry Tuesday said it is working closely with its finance ministry to take measures for ensuring adequate availability of funds to exporters.

"Commerce ministry is working closely with the finance ministry to ease credit flow to the export sector, especially small exporters to ensure adequate availability of funds to them," it said in a statement.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Gupta has time and again demanded augmentation of credit flow to the export sector, as a sharp decline in credit would impact exports growth.

It said that the commerce has identified 15 overseas locations including Astana (Kazakhstan), Beijing (China) Cape town (South Africa), Dubai (UAE), Frankfurt (Germany), London (UK), Melbourne (Austrialia), and New York (USA), where trade promotion organisations are proposed to be created.

"India has great potential to generate greater volumes of export with these countries but at present trade with them stands as single digit numbers," it said.

The ministry, it said, is making all efforts to diversify India's export basket region and commodity wise.

It also said that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are a means of correcting India's balance of trade.

On ease of doing business, it said the ministry has developed a district level reforms plan to improve business environment in districts.

The plan has been "shared with states and UTs for implementation by districts. The state and UT governments have been requested to evaluate districts on the basis of achievements in implementation of this plan on the basis of users' feedback," it added.

On the progress of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project, the statement said 56 plots constituting 335.51 acres have already been allotted to industries.

"This is expected to bring an investment of about Rs 8,354 crore over a period of 3-5 years," it said.

Further on the proposed mega trade deal RCEP, the ministry said think-tanks -- ICRIER, Centre for Regional Trade, IIM (Bangalore) and Centre for WTO) Studies -- are being engaged for undertaking comprehensive study on India's approach to this agreed.

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a mega trade pact aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.

RCEP bloc comprises 10 Asean members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners - India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.